10000 hours

A couple weeks ago, the hip-hop artist Macklemore released an album, The Heist, containing the song 10000 hours.

I’ve been a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell, journalist and author of a few popular books you’ve probably read or at least heard of. Things like The Tipping Point or Outliers.

In Outliers Gladwell makes readers aware of the “10000 hour” rule. It’s not a rule he invented, and it’s more like a “rule of thumb”.

If you want to be great at something, it’s probably going to take 10000 hours of practice.

So it was neat to see the 10000 hour rule, Gladwell and a few other names of people whose work is important to me inscribed in a song which describes some of the struggle that went into Macklemore’s career and creating the album this song is on.

Even if Macklemore isn’t your music of choice, it’s still pretty damn cool to see a song inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s work.

Macklemore (Ben Haggerty) is also a real interesting guy. This bit in his bio on Wikipedia struck me:

Interested in reaching a younger generation through his music, he took a job at a juvenile-detention facility.

That seems to be a very innovative way for an artist today to reach new fans and spread a message: getting sober, homophobia, and not the least of which is.

See, I observed Escher

I loved Basquiat

I watched Keith Haring

You see, I study art

The greats weren’t great because at birth they could paint

The greats were great because they paint a lot.

Macklemore

You can read the lyrics over at Rap Genius or give the song a listen on You Tube below.



P.S. I’d be incredibly thrilled to meet you on Twitter: here

 
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Stay in the building.

I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that’s funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen’s too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain’t funny. Mitch Hedberg This post is inspired by... Continue →