(AllHipHop News) What everyone knew: last week, Kendrick Lamar’s “Control” verse shook up the Hip Hop industry and spawned responses from everyone from Fred The Godson to The Madd Rapper.
What everyone didn’t know: Macklemore was writing battle raps towards Kendrick for 48 hours.
At a recent interview with Power 105.1, the “Thrift Shop” rapper admitted to getting swept up in the competitive energy that permeates Hip Hop following Kendrick’s “Control” verse:
I was definitely one of them. I wasn’t p#####, but for like 48 hours, I was like, ‘Hell no. I’ve gotta step my game up.’ That’s what it is. That’s the beautiful thing about that record. It has people talking. Everyone knows it. Everyone’s competitive.
Macklemore further explains his competitive energy by stating he grew up in the underground scene and did not think his mega successful album with Ryan Lewis had any commercially viable singles:
I came up as a backpack rapper, underground Hip Hop. The fact that a song about thrift shops popped off the way that it did…I mean, we didn’t think we had one single on the entire album, much less three.