The Secretly Remarkable Evolution of Mac Miller
From boastful party-boy beginnings, to politically conscious and a cynical recluse, it’s been quite the interesting path for the Pittsburgh rapper.
Traversing through the hip-hop — and, for the most part, any musical genre — landscape has become increasingly convoluted as time goes on. The slew of artists, and avenues through which we choose to consume their music, is seemingly at an all-time high. This often results in a feeling of repetition, or simplicity, with what hip-hop music seems to consist of. I’m almost positive that there are at least 16 rappers with “Lil” in their name — and their musical styles are almost entirely the same, both sonically and lyrically, with lil (I’m sorry) to no evolution. Drugs, having sex with girls, drugs, and probably more drugs: it’s the cliche that never ceases to let up.
But that’s not to say these kinds of formulaic sounds are without merit; they’re easily accessible, catchy, and it’s undoubtedly fun to put yourself in the mindset of living the #Gangster life — even if you’re Tom, a white suburban kid from an affluent background that is studying economics at Columbia University.
Nevertheless, it’s still a sound that isn’t very original or particularly inspired, which makes artists in the genre that avoid the trope infinitely more interesting and exciting. And, in his own way, one of those artists that makes these kinds of adventurous transgressions is Mac Miller, the Pittsburgh native who, today, is releasing his fifth studio album Swimming.
While Miller is hardly one with an equally acerbic lyrical talent of someone like, say, Kendrick Lamar, he is an artist that continually manages to diversify his portfolio — and, given where he sounded initially, has secretly become one of the more underrated artists in his genre and still one of my favorites to this day.
Originally going by the name of “EZ Mac” for his first mixtape But My Mackin’ Ain’t Easy, which he released at the age of fifteen way back in 2007, Mac Miller’s early beginnings, like many others, consisted of fairly straight-forward party tracks. Miller’s image was primarily that of a partying stoner that skipped classes, which was perhaps best exemplified by the cover art of his 2009 mixtape The High Life.
The description certainly fit, but there were the occasional detours like on the song “Another Night”, which had a considerably more mellow and isolated sound than his reputation and body of work suggested. It might’ve been a sign that Miller had room to grow, and it would seem that independent label Rostrum Records certainly felt the same as they signed him to a deal in early 2010.
It was around this time that Miller began to garner serious national attention, and with the release of his next project titled K.I.D.S — inspired by the 1995 film Kids, which is quoted throughout — in August, and with that came his true ascent into musical stardom and relevance. Many of the songs on the album became hits, and their music videos gained popularity at a commensurate rate back in the early days of Youtube.
Songs like the high-school anthem “Senior Skip Day” (above), “Nikes On My Feet”, “Kool Aid and Frozen Pizza”, and the oldies-inspired instrumental with “Knock Knock” helped Miller go nuclear, with the mixtape receiving over 1 million downloads and music videos accounting for more than 100 million views on Youtube. Once again, Miller put together a bevy of tracks that followed his usual party, hey-everybody-lets-have-a-good-time schtick, and the breakout project ceded him plenty of recognition throughout the industry. Some even began to, albeit lazily, dub Miller “The next Eminem” due to this explosion of popularity.
Interestingly though, there was yet again an interesting layer of ideas underneath the mainstream slice of bangers on the album. There is one moment where the song “Traffic in the Sky” — which has a particularly mellow, low-key sound — is followed by the resoundingly loud banger “Don’t Mind If I Do”, and again seems to suggest that Miller’s style is more than meets the eye. Such a transition like it isn’t unheard of, but it’s certainly a stark contrast to the perception of what Miller’s discography consists of; that this might not be your typical mainstream party rapper.
Of course, this observation would be put on hold once Miller’s next project Best Day Ever was released in 2011. The tape featured some of Miller’s most grandiose production yet, featuring his fellow Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa, and his decidedly most famous song “Donald Trump” — which remains iconic to this day, even if for all the wrong reasons.
The tape, much like K.I.D.S, was a huge success and featured more of the same sounds fans had grown accustomed to. There were some experimental ideas sprinkled throughout, but Best Day Ever was exactly what you would’ve expected, for better or worse. And with so much attention, focus shifted towards Miller’s first studio album Blue Slide Park, which was released on November 8, 2011. The record did incredibly well financially, selling over 145,000 copies in it’s first week; a record-breaking number and the first time an independently-distributed album had topped the charts since 1995.
Unfortunately, the record didn’t receive the critical adulation one might hope for, which probably played a part in the massive sales drop it suffered in the following weeks. Aside from a select few tracks like “Missed Calls”, “Frick Park Market”, and “Smile Back” (or, for me, the unbelievably stupid and childish “Up All Night”, which my friend and I still listen to for some reason?), there were too many shortcomings throughout for the album to be a cohesive, well-balanced production.The album was a disappointment, plain and simple — even if some of the negative reactions to it were a bit over-the-top.
The failure of Blue Slide Park stymied the freight train of blockbuster popularity Miller had accrued over the last few years. There were the occasional single or two like “Loud” from his 2012 mixtape Macadelic, but Miller’s sky-high prospects had largely receded.
Even with Miller on somewhat of a decline, there were still interesting and fortuitous developments in his career taking place. In November of 2012, he released a project titled You under the alias of Larry Lovestein & The Velvet Revival that was anything but the rapping we’d seen from him previously, and instead a collection of toned-down jazz instrumentals. The project was hardly any good, but it was different. The release was profoundly odd, and Miller would end up releasing two more experimental projects in the following years called Run-On Sentences Vol. 1 (under the alias “Larry Fisherman”) in March of 2013 and Delusional Thomas in October of the same year.
This would all happen, mind you, in the same year of his second studio album Watching Movies With the Sound Off, which was released on June 13, 2013. The album featured a much different version of Mac, and had a new psychedelic sound and more ambiguous thematical element to it. Songs like the statically-infused “S.D.S”, the drugged-out, almost horror movie-esque “Watching Movies”, and the unabashedly crude “Goosebumpz” served as the main highlights of the record.
The record was an oddball — a giant blip on Miller’s career path that showcased a multitude of idiosyncratic sounds, monotone vocals, lyricism laced with clever, sardonic humor (e.g., “People selling drugs cause they can’t find no job, Wonder if Christ made a million off selling the cross” on the song “S.D.S”), and even a coupling of tracks (“REMember” and “Someone Like You”) dedicated to the passing of a friend.
Through all this, what was previously a distant idea had now become a reality: Mac Miller was fucking weird.
The seemingly abrupt transformation was like going from Jeff Spicoli to the Cheshire Cat, and was one that largely flew under the radar of mainstream attention (possibly due to the album being released the same day as Kanye West’s Yeezus and J.Cole’s Born Sinner). It was the first real moment we got of what would become Miller’s rather mercurial approach to his music; ever-changing and stylistically vibrant.
On May 11, 2014 we would see the release of his tenth mixtape Faces, an incredibly dark and self-examining collection of zoned-out tunes that felt, at times, like a cry for help during a time when Miller had vanished from the spotlight. After what felt like an eternity of absence — and his reported struggles with addiction — he finally returned on September 18, 2015 with his third studio album GO:OD AM, which was the first project he released under his new tenure with Warner Bros. Records.
On that album, Miller sported a much more animated and focused approach, with a sharper attention to detail and diversity in his sound. Gone was his almost entirely monotone vocal delivery and instead a fantastic collection of tracks that felt like an amalgamation of all the things Miller had done well on previous projects. There were the enthusiastic bangers like “Break the Law” and “When in Rome”, moody anthems like “Weekend”, and uniquely sounding tracks like the double entendre of “100 Grandkids” or the energetic-but-not-overly-energetic “Brand Name”, and some truly authentic moments like “ROS” and “Perfect Circle / God Speed” that opened up about his personal struggles.
Finally, there came another changeup with the September 2016 release of The Divine Feminine, a soulful, cozy, and anatomically romantic album with an eclectic cast of features (e.g., Anderson. Paak, CeeLo Green, Ariana Grande, and Kendrick Lamar). The album was also received quite well, and was viewed as being one of the more peculiar releases in hip-hop in recent years. An album openly discussing love — and doing so in a way intended to celebrate the female perspective — isn’t exactly what comes to mind when thinking of rappers (exception maybe being Drake, who is more of a hopeless “romantic” pontificating about his inconveniences with women, than anything).
While it may suggest it, this lengthy chronicling of Mac Miller’s career isn’t due to him being the most inventive artist in the music industry; in fact, he’s far from it. It’s as much a biographical recap as it is a clever sneak-diss aimed at my friends who’d mocked me for years for being a fan of his (I’m 80% joking). It’s intended as being a small observation into what has been an interesting path, even if not the most publicized one.
This isn’t remotely the same polymathic career of Donald Glover, or the awe-inspiring character and personal life of Kanye West. What he is, though, is interesting — and, more curiously, more interesting the less famous he became. Going from a young party-goer, to creating multiple personas like he was James McAvoy in Split, to self-deprecating and cynical loner, to all-over-the-place rapper that likes to sing a little, to romantic devotee is a strange blueprint for a rapper to follow these days.
Mac Miller isn’t the most innovative artist out there; he’s just a lot more innovative than people realize.
