Macklemore Wishes He’d Warned Iggy Azalea About That “White Privilege II” Line

Macklemore, hip-hop’s leading peddler of apologies to other famous rappers, says he regrets not giving Iggy Azalea advance warning about naming her in his controversial song “White Privilege II.” (At one point in the song he brings up the debate about white artists appropriating black culture, naming Azalea, Miley Cyrus and Elvis alongside himself.) It was not a diss, let’s get that straight, it was presenting already-in-existence critiques of those musicians, but regardless, Macklemore still wants to clear the air, because he’s Macklemore and aw shucks his heart was in the right place.

“Iggy and I came up together. We were on the XXL ‘Freshman’ cover together. There’s enough of a relationship that I should have let her know beforehand. And I didn’t do that,” he told Billboard, adding that he hasn’t talked to the Aussie MC since.

Back when the song dropped, Iggy responded defensively (which suggests she entirely missed the point of those bars), tweeting that “he shouldnt have spent the last 3 yrs having friendly convos and taking pictures together at events etc if those were his feelings.”

So with this, and Kanye supposedly giving Taylor advance warning about his “Famous” diss, I guess we’re about to live in a world where all rap name-drops must be approved beforehand? Seems fun.