“Well, I’m so tired of being so tired. Why I gotta build something beautiful just to go set it on fire?” raps Malcolm James McCormick, who went by the stage name Mac Miller, on the track “Good News.” If you listen close enough, you really can hear just how tired he is. It makes sense considering the album was recorded only a couple of months before he would ultimately pass away. Circles, the album that gave us the intimate single, was the final album in Miller’s catalog and was released in 2020 – nearly two years after his death.
Miller died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl, cocaine and alcohol on September 7th, 2018. He was only 26 years old and he had finally shifted from being the rowdy stoner kid to the beacon of mental health in the rap industry. Miller helped to pave the way for male vulnerability and break down the barriers of toxic masculinity in rap music by giving us a close look at his mental health and addiction struggles.
“Mac sort of helped take it to a new level in talking about his own problems, his vulnerabilities, his insecurities,” said Millers manager Benjy Grinberg. “I think you’ll find today a lot of artists that are okay with showing those insecurities because of artists like Mac.”
Miller got his start in the rap scene in his hometown in 2007 when he was only 15. He initially went by the name ‘EZ Mac’ and his music could best be described as ‘party tracks,’ or ‘frat hits.’ Starting in ‘frat rap,’ a niche genre of rap that was popular between 2009 and 2015, helped Miller capture the attention of many young college kids who often played his music at parties. Many college students saw themselves in Mac and his ‘fuck the system,’ mentality.
Ez Mac eventually became Mac Miller, giving college kids hits like The Spins (2010) and Party on Fifth Ave (2011).
But somewhere between 2014 and 2015, when Miller’s struggles with addiction hit a peak, he went from a party kid to a poet who was clearly struggling.
The release of GO:OD AM (2015) was the world’s first look into Miller’s psyche – his thoughts, feelings and everyday struggles. Influences of drugs and partying were very much still there but this time, more as a means to quiet his mind and escape the torment and pain he felt inside.
We see this in Perfect Circle / God Speed with lyrics like: “White lines be numbing them dark times / Them pills that I’m popping, I need to man up / Admit it’s a problem, I need a wake up / Before one morning, I don’t wake up.”
“He sounds like someone’s troubled little brother made good: from the album’s opening horns, you can sense that this is a victory lap of sorts, a homecoming,” said Pitchfork contributor Tayler Montague after the release of Miller’s fourth solo studio album.
GO:OD AM caused a shift in Miller and his loyal listeners – it was the first time they heard their idol say, ‘Hey, I’m scared if I keep going like this I might not live to see another day.’
“There’s something about just being able to find that song that lyrically can express how you’re feeling,” said Mac Miller fan Drew Ecker. “His music is just so relatable in my mind.”
On the track Brand Name (also on GO:OD AM), Miller says “To everyone who sell me drugs: Don’t mix it with that bullshit, I’m hopin’ not to join the 27 Club.”
“I remember listening to his music and you could almost feel the sadness, the depression, or just the overall struggle,” said Mac Miller fan and founder of Using: My Story, Isaac Martinez. “It’s crazy how you can feel that.”
Miller’s most notable song about his mental health came on his fifth studio album, Swimming (2018) – released one month before his death. The fifth track on the album, Self Care, touches on his depression with lyrics like: “I know that feelin’ like it’s in my family tree, yeah / That Mercedes drove me crazy, I was speedin’ / Somebody save me from myself.”
Miller wrote Swimming and Circles simultaneously – for the most part. In 2018, he was working with Producer Jon Brion, who says he was so inspired that once he had his songs written for Swimming he just kept writing.
“He’d picked the stuff he picked for Swimming, and then we had this other pile. He was going to go on tour and come back, and we were going to finish up the Circles batch together,” said Brion.
Miller and Brion would never finish the Circles album together.
After Miller’s passing, his family approached Brion and asked him to finish Miller’s work on the Circles album.
Circles was Miller’s most vulnerable work to date – a bittersweet listen knowing that the beautiful work he created was at the expense of his own mind and heart.
“The feeling that he provides is beautiful. It’s a work of art. That man poured his heart out onto that album,” said aspiring musician, Yung Sioux.
Circles begins with the song of the same title with the opening line: “Well, this is what it look like… right before you fall.” And through his last album, Miller takes us on the journey of his downfall in the most intimately depressing way possible – giving us the ending to a story we weren’t ready to say goodbye to.