If Macklemore is the first white rapper to find mainstream success with a mainly caucasian audience, G-Eazy will be the first to do so without relying on a dated notion of hip-hop’s sound. While one does get the feeling that there’s a better album somewhere inside of him, These Things Happen shows promise. He seems unafraid to wrestle with mature ideas-about himself, or the sobering realization that living a dream is no exemption from life’s daily indignities. This isn’t a strike against the quality of G-Eazy’s work his new album is well-crafted and considered. G-Eazy slid easily into this old new world, building an organic, devoted fanbase without the explicit mass support of hip-hop’s original audiences. In Macklemore’s wake, there’s a hardened consensus that hip-hop is whiter, the old patterns of cultural co-option well underway.
