Growing up in Seattle, Ben Haggerty wasn’t a fan of school. There was one class, however: a visual arts class with a teacher who, one day, offered an assignment. She had a super hero character still in its box. It had a cape, was dressed up, the whole nine yards. But the hero had no emblem. The assignment: create a moniker for this hero. Ben had always been a good artist and so he came up with his answer: Professor Macklemore.

Ironically, in high school, the rapper would go to thrift stores and buy the most outlandish outfits – golfers pants, fur coats, pastels. And when he would get drunk off malt liquor and dress up in these clothes he would tell his friends to call him the name he’d come up with: Professor Macklemore. “And it just kind of stuck,” he said.

Macklemore told this story and many others to a few hundred people at the Act Theater in downtown Seattle last night in an interview with Elliott Wilson. I went to the event with my friend Marco Collins. Also in the audience were Seattle rapper Spekulation, promoter J. Moore and producer Jake One, along with Macklemore’s booker and fiancé (front row, center). All there to see the local musician turned international superstar.

The interview, at times banal, at times rehashing much of what many of us knew already – how Macklemore succeeded as an independent musician, how he got Warner to distribute his music – did touch on some interesting topics: like the rapper’s father forcing his son, then in his mid-twenties, to go to rehab in Canada where, “The food was awesome” and “we had a few milkshakes.” Said Mack, “I didn’t have the tools to get sober” until then.

I went to the speech not because I’m the biggest fan of the dude’s music (though I do appreciate it), but because I wanted to hear him talk about the business side of being a superstar. In the early days, when Macklemore and Ryan Lewis were playing to rooms of 200 people and working on their album The Heist for years, they decided to make a cool video to match the song that was getting some attention around the country, “Thrift Shop.” The video had to fit the song, which, in a time of “make it rain” was about “being cheap”.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis went around the thrift stores trying to find a location to shoot. And once they finally put together a fun video, it started to slowly but surely go viral. Soon the song was being played in Las Vegas and other markets and the duo were meeting with A&R reps. When Warner took the challenge to promote “Thrift Shop” nation- and world-wide, Macklemore had to face a choice.

“This song could go,” he said. “And I had to ask myself, if I wanted this as my life. I could stay indie and live off that comfortably. But in the end, I said, ‘Yes.’” But when you have a huge hit song, you become that song. “I was the ‘Thrift Shop’ guy,” he said. “And it was scary. I spent a lot of time in fear.”

Now, the hip-hop duo are re-releasing their song, “Same Love,” on the backs of their two huge radio hits, the aforementioned “Thrift Shop” and their second single, “Can’t Hold us”, a anthemic-pump-you-up record featuring Ray Dalton. At the mention of “Same Love”, my friend Marco, an openly gay man who has a long history in Seattle music, begins a loud clap, everyone else in the audience follows.

Another touching moment came when Macklemore described himself, just back from rehab in his twenties, living in his parents basement, sleeping more than half the day away. “I was really, really depressed,” he said. “I thought I missed my shot.” It was then he began to work with Ryan Lewis on their VS. EP. “Ryan was kind of split,” the rapper admitted of his producer, who was also working with other musicians on other projects. “He wasn’t sure where he wanted to put all his energy.” Macklemore added, “If this music didn’t hit, then I was done.”

But the work paid off. “Playing shows to 20 people is a bitch,” he said. But the process grew him up. He became capable in front of a few dozen people, then a few hundred, then a few thousand. He was given the luxury (though at the time it didn’t seem so) to fail and make mistakes. And while on tour in places like New York City, his capabilities shined. “We decided to book shows at smaller clubs and sell them out,” he said, “rather than book bigger clubs and have them be half full.” This created a buzz. He was working the system.

And now the man, who began a scrawny kid at Nathan Hale high school rapping in cyphers, is on top of the musical world (evident by the safari hat, gold chains and fresh Jordans he wore to the interview). Over the last year, while on their world tour, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have not recorded together. “I’ve written some, and Ryan has made some beats, but we haven’t written a song,” he said. “I’m not on the industry clock.” The point, then, is to make good “conceptual” music and to talk about things that “scare me,” Macklemore admitted.

The aim is to make good music, he said. “And if it’s not good then you’re not going to see me.”