Macklemore is back.
Delivering his first album since amicably parting ways with Ryan Lewis, the Seattle rapper drops his sophomore follow-up to 2005’s The Language of My World with his star-studded new LP, Gemini.
The album finds Mack partnering with a slew of stars, including Skylar Grey (“Glorious”), Lil Yachty (“Marmalade”), Kesha (“Good Old Days”), Offset (“Willy Wonka”), Eric Nally (“Ain’t Gonna Die Tonight”), and Dan Caplen (“Intentions”).
Other guests include Otieno Terry (“Levitate”), Reignwolf (“Firebreather”), King Draino (“How to Play the Flute”), Donna Missal (“Over It”), Abir (“Zara”), Xperience (“Church”), Saint Claire (“Excavate”), and Dave B and Travis Thompson (“Corner Store”).
Before parting ways with Lewis, Mack and his producer released two albums, 2012’s immensely successful The Heist and 2015’s This Unruly Mess I’ve Made.
“With this album I think there’s an air of like ‘first thought, best thought’ that I don’t think that Ryan and I really ever tapped into – just being in the booth and feeling an emotion and going with it,” Macklemore told Rolling Stone. “And then the next day you start over and you do it again. Like you watch [Lil] Wayne or you watch JAY-Z record or you know a lot of these new rappers how they record and I think there’s an air of freedom to that method of just like, ‘Let’s just make art, let’s not overthink it, let’s not over-calculate it, let’s not preemptively quantify what this is gonna mean to the world.’ But let’s just make some rap music.”
Next up, Mack will embark on his “Gemini Tour” in support of the album, starting Oct. 6 in Portland.