In the week since Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ numerous wins at the Grammys last month, and Macklemore’s resulting text message to fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar, a number of artists and fans voiced their opinion on the Seattle emcee’s post-Grammys text. Among those artists is North Carolina beatsmith 9th Wonder who referred to Macklemore’s text to K-Dot as “a great thing” during an interview with the NE Hip Hop.

The producer went on to state that Macklemore has tapped into a market that other Hip Hop acts have been unable to and according to 9th, that market is soccer moms.

“Well, I mean people are gonna talk, man,” 9th Wonder said. “If you really look at the situation. Macklemore and Kendrick are—they’re acquaintances or friends. You know what I mean? That’s number one. Number two, a lot of people think what Macklemore did was kinda like ‘Aw, that was weak.’ It’s sad we live in a world where it’s being called weak to reach out to somebody and say that. You know what I mean…I saw that as a great thing, man. We can’t blame that man for winning that…We can’t call him no gimmick. We can’t call him none of that. Whether we like the music or not he made a song about going to the thrift store. Who thought that was gonna bang? It banged. You know what I mean? And he tapped into an audience that a lot of us Hip Hoppers don’t tap into and that’s the soccer mom crowd.”

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9th Wonder also expressed his excitement at Outkast’s upcoming festival tour and says he’s even more excited at the prospect of the Southern duo releasing new music.

“I got more excited about the notion of them doing some more music,” he said. “Them touring is one thing, but knowing they getting back in the studio the way they have progressed both as emcees, especially 3000. Like come on. So, what would really bring it home is if Organized Noize get back involved in it. Cause they made their living off creating their own niche every album. So, you know they’re not gonna come out with a single that’s gonna sound like everything else. So, I’m happy about that.”

The producer also offered details on how “Betty Shabazz,” one of his favorite beats, was created. 9th Wonder says the beat came about after DJ Premier gave him a bunch of records to work with while he was at Premier and Showbiz’s studio.

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“That ‘Betty Shabazz’ beat, man. And the crazy thing about that is I made that beat in DJ Premier and Showbiz’s studio,” 9th Wonder said. “And Premier gave me—I asked him for some records…And he just reached down and just gave me some records like that. And so he said ‘Take that. Take that. Take that.’ And I ain’t question it, so I went down to Showbiz room and I made the beat on Showbiz’s MPC500. And I asked Showbiz for some drums cause I ain’t have nothing. I said ‘I just need to make something.’ And I made one it was okay. And I made ‘Betty Shabazz’ and Prem’ came down the hall and was like ‘Play that, man.’ I played it, he was like ‘Man, you made it off that record?’ I said ‘Yeah, I made it off that record. He said ‘Man, damn.’ So, ‘Betty Shabazz’ is probably—I like that.”

As a renowned producer and head of Jamla Records, 9th Wonder has had the opportunity to work with Jay Z, Rapsody, Sean Price, and countless other artists.

RELATED:9th Wonder Presents “Jamla Is The Squad” Release Date, Cover Art & Compilation Tracklist

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