One of the surprising breakout artists of 2012 was the collabo team of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis whose The Heist LP moved some major units, especially considering their indie status. Recently, their big single off the project “Thrift Shop” topped the Billboard Singles chart and went Platinum. In a recent interview with MTV, Macklemore talks about how surprised he is by the record’s success, and how the message on the track runs counter to the swag and brag style of today’s hip hop.
When asked if he expected the track to be nearly as successful as it was, the rapper says he only expected it to reach a select number of fans, “"Never, never, absolutely not...I thought it was going to be like a niche demographic that some of our fanbase would like. I never thought that it would be much more than that."
Discussing how the track talks about buying clothes at a discount, which is not the message that is popular in most rap, Mack mentions the changing tastes in the genre, “I think hip-hop goes in waves, and it's something that's different. It's a concept. It's obviously against the status quo of what people normally rap about.” Addressing what the track is about he describes it as, “How much can you save? How fresh can you look by not looking like anybody else? And on top of that, you have an infectious beat and a hook that gets stuck in people's heads."
With the success he’s been experiencing on his own, the rapper has said before that he is not in a rush to sign with a major label, and he mentions how he does not want to stymie his creative process, "I don't want to feel that pressure when in the studio trying to create. I want to make music that I like; not something that I have to make because I think it's going to sell."