Remembering Mac Miller.
Miller, an artist known for his musical innovation as much as his personal struggles, died five years ago this month.
I was seven or so when my grandma, Dad’s mum, told me of the day Elvis died, in the summer of 1977.
Even then, some thirty-odd years later, she could still recall that mid-August afternoon with near-perfect clarity.
How she heard, on the radio, the news. The man from small-town Mississippi who became an icon, a musical touchstone for an entire generation (and on the other hand, was a lightening rod for criticism).
Who, despite his unprecedented success, had struggled for years with addiction, substance abuse and poor health. He was dead, at 42, of what would later be deemed cardiac arrest.
How strange it felt, she said, knowing someone who was such a key part of her cultural experience was… gone. Just like that.
How much she cried.
And I hope that I was sympathetic but at same time, I don’t know. I remember thinking, in only the way a seven year old can: really?
Not in the sense that I didn’t want to listen but it seemed so… inconsequential, so strange (she was, for the record, one the very best storytellers I’ve ever known).
But… to be blunt, people die, right? I mean, we all will, eventually.
And celebrities? Entertainers? The brightest of stars?
How can a person who reached so many, millions-upon-millions, impact just one so deeply?
It seemed ridiculous.
So, of course, I remember exactly where I was on September 7th, 2018.
I had just gotten home, commuting through a maze of bad service on public transit and because of that, hadn’t bothered to check my phone.
My WiFi automatically connected as I walked in and my phone, in response, promptly greeted me with a chorus of chirps and notifications. It can wait, I thought. But I checked it anyway.
Mac Miller, the much-loved rapper, was dead by way of an accidental drug overdose. He was 26.
Just a few weeks prior, he had released his fifth album, Swimming, thirteen tracks of pure creative expression and his most introspective work yet.
Hell, I had just been listening to it an hour earlier.
And as I started to tear up, it hit me:
“Dammit. Grandma was right.”
Mac Miller was the stage name of Malcom McCormick, an artist who showed such promise he was still a teenager when his debut album, Blue Slide Park, was released in 2011.
He had dutifully cut his teeth in Pittsburgh’s burgeoning rap scene over the previous few years before his 2010 mixtape, K.I.D.S (Kickin’ Incredibly Dope Shit) catapulted him to national prominence.
Drugs, partying and good times.
The basis of his early work, it was incredibly successful if not particularly groundbreaking (Blue Slide Park became the first independent album to chart on the Billboard 200 since 1994).
Genre standard? Perhaps. And somewhat surprisingly, even given the more juvenile, teenage-energy nature of his lyrics, almost inoffensive.
But to pigeonhole Miller into any particular box, as some did, was to miss the bigger picture, to see the groundwork he was laying.
To see how his artistry would continue to evolve from project-to-project, both as a producer and a lyricist - even as he openly struggled with substance abuse, addiction and his mental health.
Miller, who alternated between periods of heavy use and relative sobriety, admirably, never shied away from his battles, even as they greatly influenced his music both in scope and character.
Faces, his 2014 mixtape, is often considered to be his very best work.
Building on what 2013’s Watching Movies with the Sound Off achieved, the tape, backed by moody, jazz-infused psychedelics, explores difficult themes with a vivid sense of lived-in struggle: from his drug use, depression and personal worth
Miller, ever-candid, was honest about the space he was in at time. Depressed, using, afraid of dying.
It encapsulated, to a heartbreaking degree in hindsight, his difficult, relatable, brilliance.
Here was someone, who, over the following four years, would continue to push his musical envelope, tackling love in his lyrics and legacy in his production but was someone, equally so, who struggled.
As we all do, with something.
Circles, Miller’s first major posthumous release, arrived in January of 2020. Widely acclaimed, it was a project that spoke as much to Miller’s relentless musical evolution as it did to what could’ve been.
How much more he could’ve accomplished.
In August of 2018, on his promotional tour for Swimming, Miller appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk series.
The video itself has been viewed over 100 million times on YouTube, the top comments, as of this writing, are those returning to it over the past week, remembering Miller. His enthusiasm for his work, his talent, his drive to continually improve.
All of them, all of us, missing a talent that was lost far too soon.