"White Privilege II" | ||||
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Promotional single by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Jamila Woods | ||||
from the album This Unruly Mess I've Made | ||||
Released | January 22, 2016 | |||
Genre | Alternative hip hop, indie hip hop | |||
Length | 8:42 | |||
Label | Macklemore LLC | |||
Songwriter(s) |
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Producer(s) | Ryan Lewis | |||
This Unruly Mess I've Made track listing | ||||
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"White Privilege II" is a song by American hip hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis from their second album This Unruly Mess I've Made (2016). The song, a sequel to Macklemore's solo song "White Privilege" from his first album The Language of My World (2005), discusses white privilege and the social movement associated with Black Lives Matter. According to the duo, "this song is the outcome of an ongoing dialogue with musicians, activists, and teachers within our community in Seattle and beyond. Their work and engagement was essential to the creative process." The song's lyrics span around nine minutes and 1300 words. One of the project's collaborators is Chicago singer Jamila Woods, whose voice is featured on the track. "White Privilege II" was released as promotional single on January 22, 2016.
The song comments on the impunity with which white police in the United States are free to take black lives, with "a shield, a gun with gloves and hands that gives an alibi." Arguing his success is "the product of the same system that let off Darren Wilson," a police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, Macklemore raps that, "one thing the American dream fails to mention, is that I was many steps ahead to begin with". The song also samples a line from a woman who dismisses the concept of white privilege, "you're saying that I have an advantage, why? Because I'm white? [scoffs and laughs] What? No."
Forrest Wickman, writing for Slate, analyzes the song as having multiple sections that often bear a different critical viewpoint (narrator) from Macklemore himself. "The biggest mistake early reactions to the song have made, pretty consistently, is assuming that everything Macklemore raps is in his own voice." The first verse in his own voice, where Macklemore raps about his struggle to find his place in the protest movement, conscious that his commercial success in hip-hop is at least partially a product of white privilege.