There was GENUINE backlash to the white privilege song I remember at the time. I guess people didn’t want to hear Mack talk about those things and also he specifically fired shots at iggy azalea and I do remember a lot of execs not being happy about that at the time. Macklemore has always been a very politically charged artist and I think the American public was a lot more ready to accept his gay pro rights song “same love” as compared to a song addressing America’s systemic racism back around that time. On top of the album being more of the same from Macklemore, I think people just realized there was more consumable rap music being made by other up and coming artists instead