Macklemore has announced North American dates for THE BEN TOUR set to start on September 17 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, the 19-date tour will make stops across both coasts and the mid-west including September 30th at The Rave/Eagles Club in Milwaukee. 

 For this upcoming tour, Macklemore is proud to have partnered with PLUS1, and will be donating $1 per ticket to Bridges - Seattle Alternative Peer Group in support of their work in mentoring youth in recovery.  

BEN is Mackemore’s highly anticipated third studio album. “I’ve always wanted to make an album called Ben,” he shares. “There’s something about a self-titled record. It has an air of voyeurism. I’m letting people in, but in a way that I hadn’t felt 100% comfortable about allowing before. I am now though.” throughout 2020, he found himself with a rare pocket of time for introspection during the Global Pandemic—something not typically afforded to a father of three and touring musician…

 “I did experience a level of reflection I don’t think I’ve been able to truly tap into in the past,” he affirms. “This mandatory pause and the time created a level of intimacy that might not have been there if the world had continued to operate how it was.”

 Joined by a tight-knit group of collaborators such as Budo, Tyler Dox, and Experience, he ventured to the island multiple times for focused five-day trips. “I’ve recorded in nature before, but I never had the opportunity to do so with no ending in sight,” he reveals. “We were removed from all external distractions. It just flowed. The idea was, ‘Let’s just make art, because we get to—not because we have to. Let’s capture that magic’.” Harnessing this magic, Macklemore heralded the album throughout 2022 and 2023 with fan favorites; ‘HEROES’ featuring the legendary DJ Premier, ‘CHANT’ ft Tones and I, ‘FAITHFUL’ Ft. NLE Choppa and ‘Maniac’ Ft Windser.

 On “HEROES” [feat. DJ Premier], a head-nodding beat laced with horn samples, a thick bass line, police sirens, and scratching sets the pace, Macklemore tells his story in dynamic, yet nostalgic bars, “Wanted a perm like DJ Quik, my mama said, ‘Ben, are you aware your hair is way too thin?’ But in my mind I was junior high Iceberg Slim.” “I was raised by nineties boom-bap hip-hop,” he goes on. “It inspired me more than any other era. It was pivotal for me coming of age as a 15-year-old and figuring out who I was. ‘Heroes’ is the story of growing up in the late nineties, where hip-hop was at, where skateboarding was at, and where graffiti culture was at. It had a massive impact on where I ended up in my life. Premier is one of my favorite producers of all-time too. He had a massive influence on me as an artist and as a person. You know it’s him right away.”

Once you hear BEN, you’ll never look at Macklemore the same way. “Songwriting is the glue for my entire career,” he leaves off. “If you’re not writing words that resonate, the music isn’t going to have depth, weight, or longevity.