In celebration of our “And We Danced” video dropping on Halloween, we’re throwing the first annual RAVEN BOWIE HALLOWEEN COSTUME CONTEST!!!! The person who posts the best RAVEN BOWIE costume on my Facebook wall (www.facebook.com/Macklemore) wins a signed Sharkfacegang crew neck sweatshirt, a bunch of stickers and 2 tickets to the show of your choice on our tour. The winner will be announced on Halloween. Trick or treat y’all!!!!

AND NOW…..The WINNER of the “My City’s Filthy” contest is a tie. 2 cities are getting a shirt. The first official tour show to sell out was SAN FRANCISCO! Slims sold out over a month in advance. Hella crazy!!! We will be seeing you on November 20th. But……I see you SPOKANE! (Whitworth College). Although they gave away some tickets, they technically sold out the fastest. SO…..We were debating what to do. Going back and forth. And we decided the right way to handle it was to just have 2 winners. They both deserve it…..The designs will be limited and on a first come/first serve basis. See you soon!!!! #sharkfacegang

By this point, all of our fans know that Seattle is filthy. But there’s a ton of amazing cities in the world where we love performing. We’re always debating which city goes the hardest, has the best venue, craziest crowd etc. So for our Fall Tour we decided to do a little contest to see what other city is the filthiest of them all.

CONTEST: The city that SELLS OUT FIRST (tickets) get’s a custom made “My City’s Filthy: INSERT YOUR CITY” LIMITED EDITION T-Shirt!!!! They will be exclusively on sale during the show of the winning city and for that night ONLY. The shirt will be a hand painted design by renowned sign painted Sean Barton, who designed the Seattle shirt.

Ever since we made the “My City’s Filthy” Seattle shirt, people always asks us if we can do a custom one for their town. Now is your chance!!!

Could it be London? Dublin? New York City? Des Moines, Iowa? Bellingham, WA? San Francisco? YOU DECIDE!!!! The contest starts……….NOW!!!!

Links to tour tickets in your area are available at WWW.MACKLEMORE.COM

GOOD LUCK!!!!

#Sharkfacegang

I’ve been reading this magazine since I was 15 years old and have been wanting to be in it ever since. There are no words to describe the feeling of picking this up at a newsstand. One of the most validating checkpoints of my career. Very surreal.

What’s really crazy is that the day before I was on the phone with my manager, telling him how long it had been my dream to be in the Show and Prove section. Ryan, Owuor and I had a good set at a SXSW show that was put on by The Agency Group and XXL, so we knew we were on their radar. We just weren’t sure how to go about getting in the magazine. The next morning my manager called me, and said out of the blue XXL hollered and wanted to feature me in the the June issue. WHAT?!? We were JUST talking about it.

They needed a picture within like 48 hours and luckily my guy Jason Koenig (“My oh my” director) was in town and down for the mission. We shot the picture at Smith’s on 15th in the middle of the day, and I did the interview with XXL during a break. Finally, the picture got turned in at around 4am. Jason is that dude. Selfless, extremely talented and down to be of service. So grateful to know him as a friend and beyond blessed to work with him on a creative level.

Huge shout out to XXL for the support. It’s amazing how life works sometimes. Every once and a while, ask and you shall receive…

I’m still tripping they know my name.

These are beautiful. Just sayin

THADWICK TRISTEN TREVOR lll & SWAN COLTRANE – “Brain Champagne” (Official Music Video) from Stephan Gray on Vimeo.

HELLA impressed by this on all fronts. So much so, that I’ve got no choice but to come out of my blogger extended vacation and post it.

Tay Sean is one of my favorite producers/rappers from Seattle. He’s one half of the crew Helladope, which if you don’t know put out their self titled album with a couple Seattle classics on it not too long ago (ie. “Just so you know” and “Rainwater”). My friend Thad kills this as well. He’s makes up 1/3 of the SOTA crew. Every time I see/hear new stuff from the SOTA boys I’m impressed. Gaining recognition and a solid fan base around these parts, I keep hearing their name more and more, and for good reason. Great to see these two team up. I’ve been sluffing on their project and this is the first that I’ve heard from it.

AND STEPHAN GRAY MURDERS THIS VIDEO!!!! Probably my favorite work from him.

I’m inspired.

Hey y’all,

Zia here, wishing I could have eaten a Philly cheesesteak with Mack & Ryan on the East Coast leg of their tour*. Instead, I’m posted in Seattle, where I am basically every night: working on “Wings.”

It’s safe to say that this has been the most extensive — and in some respects, the most challenging — film project I’ve worked on. We shot for six days straight with a crew one-fifth the size most would want to work with at a minimum for a project of this scope, essentially from sunrise into the early morning (of the next day…we didn’t just pack it up after 2 hours). More than a 100 people (mostly middle schoolers) were involved with the shoot over the week, and we went everywhere from a school in White Center to Macklemore’s childhood neighborhood to a basketball court on Beacon Hill with a rain machine. Look at this ish:

The incredible amount of support shown through our Kickstarter campaign made it possible for “Wings” to be shot with some camera gear that I’ve been waiting to get my little hands on for quite some time, and it’s been a new experience to learn how to operate and optimize the footage from that system. It means a lot to me as a director that we were supported by our community and our fans, and I want to make sure that the video that is released has done justice to the faith y’all put in us to make this pop. It’s admittedly taking longer than I thought it would, but everyday, we’re getting THAT much closer to completion (I just indicated an arbitrary, imaginary measurement with my thumb and forefinger when I said “THAT,” which implied “PROGRESS”).

Over the next weeks, our team will be refining a few key shots. And now that Mack and Ryan have finished the bulk of their national tour and can be back in town more, we have a great opportunity to take the necessary time to operate as a team and make “Wings” the real collaboration it needs to be. If you haven’t already, you should check out the first few “Behind the Scenes” videos at my website, Love&Shoestrings, and stay tuned there for what’s to come. In the meantime, thanks for your attention, support, encouragement, outrage, and love.
Best,

Zia

*Macklemore note. This was written a couple days ago. It was re-worked to reach a level of perfection, hence the delay. Strength and honor.

After last nights show, its official. I have no voice at the moment. It’s been creeping and getting worse. I’ve rapped through it. But today I finally went to the doctor and they’re recommending a couple days off without talking to avoid permanent damage. What’s really unfortunate is that we’re going to have to postpone the Ann Arbor show until April 26th. If you bought tickets for the show tomorrow, they will still be valid for the re-do show. I’m deeply sorry for having to cancel. But the make up show will be better and I’ll put on a greater performance in the end. We’ll be continuing the tour in Madison Wisconsin on Wednesday as planned. Thanks so much for your patience and support. #sharkfacegang

-Macklemore

We got the “6ft” posters back!…and they were only 3ft (*sigh). Slightly humous, more disappointing and not gonna work. SO…were getting new ones ordered today, we will ship them to ourselves somewhere on our tour route. When we get them, we’ll sign em and send them off to the good folks that donated to the cause. We’re really sorry for the inconvenience and wait time. Thanks for your continued support and patience. We’ll keep you posted along the way.

-Macklemore

What can you do in 48 hours you ask? YOU CAN BE PART OF HISTORY! That’s right my friends, we got 48 hours left on our Kickstarter project. There are still limited edition posters and other fresh incentive packages available. These posters will ONLY be available through this kickstarter. THE TIME IS NOW!!!!! LEGGGOOOO!!!!

And by the way….I love you guys. For real.