The album is just horrible. It's a step down from his previous work, and I'm a huge Macklemore fan. He tried to copy Thrift Shop with Downtown, but that didn't even crack the top 10 (#12).
he turned a lot of people off with his "i am not like those other white people, i support all races, we are all africa" facade. A lot of the people thought the song was cringe worthy and unnecessary and that he was using political injustice as promo and profit
The music was simply not good and was not an improvement over the heist. They need to change up the sound way more. It sounded boring and outdated. After every song from The Heist was so overplayed they needed a fresh sound to make it, and they failed miserably at that.
They released the album months after Downtown had peaked, and still haven't released a second official single. They can still go gold at least if they release one.