Some of his best work is his most honest and those are the songs that document his struggles with addiction: the gripping "Otherside," from the 2010 VS. That aside, Macklemore's sincerity should not be under fire. Of course Macklemore focuses on his experiences as a straight man - anything else would be disingenuous, and the fact that many LGBT people have adopted it as a rallying cry for equality isn't on the artist. While I understand the backlash against "Same Love" in particular, I have always defended the song for having its heart in the right place. As Slate's Jack Hamilton puts it, he's "a man hawking hip-hop that switches out faked emotion for real intellect and faked intellect for real emotion and has no discernible goals other than to congratulate its makers for making it and its listeners for purchasing it." At the same time, there is one criticism of Macklemore that seems off the mark to me: that his message is insincere.
When a straight white man becomes the voice for marriage equality and the most celebrated artist in a music genre founded in black culture, that's something worth dissecting and challenging. These debates will rage on - as they should, frankly. The main complaints against him are that his pro-gay anthem "Same Love" is pandering and focuses too much on Macklemore's heterosexuality, and that his wins (and subsequent apology) are emblematic of white privilege. With his sweep in the Grammys' rap categories on Sunday, Macklemore is facing the requisite amount of internet backlash.