Coping with Trauma, Understanding Depression and Seeking Growth with Mac Miller
Numbness and wanting to die feels common in 2018. In hip-hop, this feeling has become ever more present in the music from artists of the past decade. From Kendrick Lamar and Chance the Rapper to G Herbo and Lil Uzi Vert, the age of silent suffering is no more. Artists are on a journey to find balance between emptiness and overwhelming emotion - giving up and pressing forward, while offering a vulnerable window for those who can relate to the messiness and uncertainty of that journey. This has led to a generation of young Hip-Hop heads finding a relatable life saving voice in the midst of numbing depression and chaos.
10 years ago, I refused to believe I was one of those young Hip-Hop fans, constantly rejecting the idea of being mentally ill. However, within the dungeon of my room I unknowingly spent years stagnant, trying to find the perfect armor, weapons and party members to take down the epic bosses that are my depression and anxiety— to no avail.
At 15, I dropped out of high school after failing freshman year twice, had little to no friends left and was on bad terms with my mom while being emotionally and physically ignored by my oblivious dad. By 16, I was a suicidal and hyper anxious college dropout shut-in with an addiction to video games that crossed the line of dangerous years prior with health problems that were stacked up like a losing game of Tetris. I was a husk - devoid of emotion or feeling. Music was always there but it wasn’t until my first and last suicide attempt that the importance of Hip-Hop became critical to my survival. Music served as the catalyst for brief stints of emotional normalcy on the rare occasions when numbness hadn’t robbed me of feeling.
“And hanging from the playground wasn’t wrong, until you got a rope around your neck/And I been losing more than just my mind, gathering what’s left of self-respect” - Isaiah Rashad on “Heavenly Father”
Hip-Hop allowed me to cry oceans to Cudi’s “Don’t Play This Song.” I held the double edged sword of seemingly manic triumph and screamed “Just wait till I get this shit perfect” from Isaiah Rashad’s “Banana,” while harboring temporary feelings of invincibility. I’ve spent hours listening to Lupe recite “Kick, Push” while contemplating whether or not to coast my ass into traffic. But it wasn’t until a failed semester at Towson University, and a rock bottom depressive relapse at 22, that I needed more from hip-hop. I needed to know what the point of going forward was and how all this shit was supposed to continue — or end. Amidst solitude and wallowing, I needed answers.
Enter Mac Miller. There are few rappers who have a catalog that comes full circle like Mac’s does. Over the course of 10 years, Mac has gone from an easy-going pothead kicking mediocre frat boy raps over fun and mellow beats, to a full blown lyrical technician and truly versatile, vulnerable musician that has rapped in arenas with hip-hop’s elite and come out on top. There are also few artists in hip-hop that have recovered from the same hellish physical and mental state that has haunted Mac throughout his career. In honing his pen, the ink he filled it with served to bleed and destroy the pages of any rhyme book he made contact with, as well as himself.
I’ve known about Mac since K.I.D.S but sometime after Blue Slide Park I lost interest, his material failed to grab me like a an iPod shuffle in an arcade claw machine. I wouldn’t start taking his material seriously again until I heard “Objects in the Mirror” from Watching Movies With the Sound Off in 2013. At that point I heard something painfully familiar— something I had never heard from him: intense vulnerability and desperation. I wanted to know how much of his journey I had missed in my absence, and what was to come.
“Only God can save him, I heard the monsters made him/I ain’t a star I’m way farther with the constellations/ Contemplating suicide like it’s a DVD,
lost inside my mind it’s a prison homie leave me be” - Mac Miller on “Diablo”
Mac and I also shared something that has afflicted many artist, from Scott Mescudi to Edgar Allan Poe, for generations: the hunger for self sabotage and destruction.
Mac has raps for years detailing every step of his chaotic expedition through depression and drug addiction, all while providing graphic details of the hallucinations and nightmares that would illustrate what it means to be hollow and afraid. From bouts of cocaine fueled paranoia to sincere moments of self reflection, Macs emotional trek is well documented on wax. Macadelic would bring forth drug fueled bangers like “Loud” and “Lucky Ass Bitch,” while the Faces mixtape can be summed up in the projects saxophone backed first line “Shoulda died already.” If my struggle with mental illness was a river, his was the Atlantic Ocean.
Re-familarizing myself with his back catalog also meant reliving my own trauma from the last 6 years, and while painful at first it was a turning point in understanding what had really happened. Going forward, I was with Mac every step of the way. The moment I realized how much he had grown, and subsequently how much I had grown, was at the start of the song “Perfect Circle/Godspeed,” from his 3rd album GO:OD AM.
[Miller McCormick]
“Hey man, I wish you were here, happy holidays
Uhm, I love ya… And I hope you have a good night slash weekend
slash I hope I talk to you soon, alright… godspeed” - Perfect Circle/Godspeed
I have missed countless phone calls and have had voicemails just like the one sent by Miller McCormick left by my mother on mornings filled with numb inquisition, as I lay lifeless under the sun’s rays stretching from my window. Despite going months without seeing me and never receiving a phone call, my mom was always there, keeping an eye on me and granting me small offerings of energy to get through the day. Hearing Mac’s brother reminded me of how important it was for me to build a support system and care for it. Beating depression alone is impossible, and if you don’t reach out in some capacity, you will be swallowed whole. Lucky for Mac, his family and friends were around to help carry him after the worst had come.
The rest of the song would start a trend for the remainder of the album, with Mac’s energy growing brighter— honest but hopeful. “ROS” finds Mac serenading his then girlfriend with talks of their future, while “Jump” functions as a breath of fresh air revitalizing the lungs of a former smoker trying to take it one day at a time. This energy continued to flourish on his fourth album, The Divine Feminine, which finds him discussing love in various contexts and revisiting the concept of ending each of his albums with death (see “The Festival,” “Grand Finale” and “Youforia”). This time however, on “God is Fair, Sexy Nasty” death is represented by his grandparents’ relationship, full of love and happiness that will last until the end of their days — perhaps a new found goal.
There are fights that still need to be fought, and Mac isn’t completely sober, but eliminating the big deterrents of his health is one of the best steps he could make in the right direction. Effort is the only requirement to stay on the path of recovery and self improvement.
“I want to be positive, as a human being and through music, but I also want to have low points. It's like an ascension. Because there's moments and they get dark...nothing is all good.” - From the Fader’s Mac Miller Documentary “Stopped Making Excuses”
If you went back and told me ten years ago, that in 2018 I would find myself championing, empathizing and identifying with a white rapper from Pennsylvania (especially considering how critical I am of white rappers these days), I would laugh hysterically and call you crazy. But if you also told me that at 25 I’d be on a career path I enjoy, close with my mom, somewhat cool with my dad and surrounded by people who love me and foresee my success...and alive? I’d call you a liar.
To be hopeful isn’t easy; it’s to be constantly tested by life and ask the question “How much worse can it get and how much more can I endure?” And while most days happy isn’t attainable, there’s peace and gratitude in being ok.
Happy, ok or neither, with 26 around the corner my growth is forever. And I have Easy Mac with the cheesy raps to thank for that (bars).
