Macklemore

Benjamin Hammond Haggerty (born June 19, 1983), better known by his stage name Macklemore ( formerly Professor Macklemore), is an American rapper.

Benjamin Hammond Haggerty was born in Seattle, Washington, on June 19, 1983, one of two sons born to Bill Haggerty and Julie Schott.

He was raised with his brother Tim in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.

He has Irish heritage and was raised Catholic.

Haggerty was six years old when hip hop first came into his life by way of Digital Underground.

At the age of 15, he began to write lyrics.

At the time he started to sing, Haggerty listened to "a lot of East Coast underground hip hop", listing Hieroglyphics, Freestyle Fellowship, Aceyalone, Living Legends, Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, Nas, and Talib Kweli as his major influences.

He was interested in reaching a younger generation through his music and became part of a program focusing on education and cultural identity called "Gateways for Incarcerated Youth", where he facilitated music workshops.

Haggerty attended Garfield High School and Nathan Hale High School.

At Hale, he developed the stage name "Professor Macklemore" for an art project involving a made-up superhero, and at Garfield, he started a hip-hop group named Elevated Elements with other students.

The single was dubbed by Billboard as the first song since 1994 to top the Hot 100 chart without the support of a major record label; however Macklemore, in a slightly unusual recording contract, pays a nominal percentage of sales to use Warner Bros. Records's radio promotion department to push his singles.

Their second single, "Can't Hold Us", also peaked at number one on the Hot 100 chart, making Macklemore and Lewis the first duo in the chart's history to have their first two singles both reach the peak position.

A native of Seattle, Washington, he started his career in 2000 as an independent artist and released three works: Open Your Eyes (2000), The Language of My World (2005) and The Unplanned Mixtape (2009).

The group released an album, Progress, in 2000.

Haggerty enrolled at the College of Santa Fe for a year, later saying in an interview that "[i]t was a very pivotal time in a lot of ways. Santa Fe was the place where I got good at rapping".

After not getting into the music program, he moved back to Seattle.

In 2000, Haggerty recorded a mixtape titled Open Your Eyes under the name Professor Macklemore, which he distributed himself and released on October 21, 2000.

Haggerty dropped "Professor" from his name and began working on his first official full-length album, called The Language of My World.

The album was released on January 1, 2005, with its lead single, "Love Song", being announced the same day.

"Love Song" featured singer Evan Roman, and was produced by Budo, who would later go on to produce several more tracks for Macklemore.

In 2006, Haggerty first met his future collaborator Ryan Lewis.

Lewis, who would go on to release two albums with Haggerty as Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, spent a few years working on Macklemore's promotion as a photographer.

He rose to international success when he collaborated with producer Ryan Lewis as the duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (2009–2016).

Haggerty later enrolled at The Evergreen State College in Olympia and completed his bachelor's degree in 2009.

The two musicians would soon become good friends but would not formalize their collaborative efforts until 2009.

In the meantime, Macklemore kept busy as a solo artist, appearing on The Physics's song "Good" in 2009, as well as performing at the Seattle major arts and music festival Bumbershoot in 2006, 2009, and 2011.

Macklemore's second mixtape, The Unplanned Mixtape, was released on September 7, 2009.

It would later reach No. 7 on the iTunes Hip Hop chart.

The mixtape was accompanied by the singles "The Town" and "And We Danced", the latter of which featured singer Ziggy Stardust.

"The Town" was later remixed by Sabzi of the Blue Scholars.

In 2009, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis formalized the collaboration as a duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

They released the EP The VS. EP.

They also released "Irish Celebration" in December 2009 in anticipation of the release of The Vs. EP.

Their debut studio album The Heist was released on 9 October 2012, and charted at number 2 on the U.S. Billboard 200.

Macklemore's and Lewis's single "Thrift Shop" (featuring Wanz) reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 2013.

The duo won four Grammy Awards at the 2014 ceremony, including Best New Artist, Best Rap Album (The Heist), Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance ("Thrift Shop").

Macklemore's and Lewis's second album, This Unruly Mess I've Made, was released on February 26, 2016.

In June 2017, Macklemore released "Glorious", a single featuring Skylar Grey, which marked his return to the music industry as well as his first major single produced without Lewis since his mainstream breakthrough.

Macklemore released a second solo studio album, Gemini, in September that year.

On February 24, 2023, he released a follow-up album entitled Ben.