Macklemore is not going away any time soon. The rapper has been a mainstay on the charts since his breakthrough single "Thrift Shop," and with that success, he's had both positive and negative attention form critics and fellow rappers. In an interview with the Breakfast Club, Mack spoke of his competitive nature, getting called out by Yelawolf and Method Man, and of course, Kendrick's "Control" verse.
Macklemore spoke of his desire to be in the hip hop conversation despite operating in his own lane. "I understand why people get put into boxes." he said, indicating that sometimes he feels unnecessarily separated from the hip hop community. "It's easy to label it one thing [from the singles]. First and foremost I'm an emcee. I'm competitive, I'm a rapper. I'm good at it, and that's my job."
The rapper then spoke of the surge of productivity Kendrick sent through rap with his "Control" verse, himself included. "Every single rapper spent that night writing angry battle raps. I was definitely one of them" he said. "For 48 hours I was like 'I gotta step my game up'."
Mack clarified that he wasn't upset by the claims. "I think he's at that place in the game where he can say something like that and back it up." he said.
The "Thrift Shop" emcee spoke of Method Man's claims that he had stolen his "crowd walking" move, explaining that while it seemed like an overreaction, he made sure to make things right. "I got his number, hit him up." he said, revealing they were cool now. "As a 6th grader, [Wu Tang] was my favorite. Method Man was my favorite Wu Tang member."
He then went on to speak on his minor confrontation with Yelawolf, in which Yela called him out on a Macklemore shirt which incorporated a deer image. "He has a deer logo. He showed me his deer tattoo on his hand." he said, explaining that Yela approached him and said "What is this? This is my thing!".
"That t-shirt is 4 or 5 years old." Mack argued. "I had no idea who Yelawolf was when we made that shirt."
"It was a little bit hostile, but we ended up on a cool tip," he said, but was still a bit taken aback when he saw Yela's rant about the logo the next day.
Mack clarified that he wasn't ready to beef over a deer image. "I thought Trunk Muzik was dope, and I don't have any problem with Yelawolf." he said, "but it was interesting to have that conversation over a t-shirt."
The "Can't Hold Us" emcee suggested that it might have something to do with their skin tone. "Sometimes people feel like there's only so much room as a white rapper." he said.
Watch the full interview below.