Macklemore Says Talking About White Supremacy Hurt Sales Of His Album

While making the promotional rounds for his upcoming album Gemini, Macklemore stopped by The Breakfast Club and talked about why his last album This Unruly Mess I've Made didn't live up to expectations.

The LP only sold 61,000 album equivalent units in its opening week and didn't even come close to achieving the success of it predecessor, the platinum-selling The Heist.

In Macklemore's opinion, talking about heavy topics such as race and politics led to the album doing poorly..  The Seattle rapper talked about his last project a little after he spoke about parting ways with his producer Ryan Lewis.

"Yes, among other things," said Macklemore when was asked if talking about heavy subject matter affected the sales of his last release. "'White Privilege II' is obviously a very polarizing record ... I think anytime you bring up an issue like white supremacy, you're going to have a bunch of people, particularly white people, [be] like, 'What? What supremacy? What is he doing? What is this concept? Who is he trying to appeal to?' ... I'm very proud of what 'White Privilege' was as a record ... We as white people are the reason why white supremacy exists. It's not on people of color to fix this problem. It's on white people to fix this problem."