![]() I wanted to go through the same shit that everyone else did.” It was hard to sit here and know that, because I was a white dude, I was able to sell easier and be more marketable. “Six thousand kids, and I’m the first hip-hop show because I’m white-college-friendly. “I remember touring and doing shows, and I was the first rap show ever in all these colleges,” Miller told the Fader in 2015. That musical and lyrical growth did not come without Miller thinking hard about his place in music, specifically perceiving his own privilege as a white rapper. Five years after rapping that he was “tryna go bananas like it’s Donkey Kong” on Blue Slide Park, Miller released 2016’s The Divine Feminine, a soulful concept record about female energy and the respect that a romantic relationship demands. Paak and “The Way” with Ariana Grande, whom he dated and shared a close relationship with flipped jazz samples and explored live instrumentation, recently with artists like Thundercat and Jon Brion opened up about depression, loneliness, substance abuse and heartbreak, in a manner that never felt performative and, increasingly, sang on his albums, often as an effective way to express his wounded psyche (see “Perfecto,” on Swimming). Over the past seven years, Miller toyed with rhythmic pop music, as on “Dang!” with Anderson. 1 bow, Miller spent his career pushing his sound forward and re-imagining his persona as a vocalist, to the point at which his most recent release, last month’s Swimming, features an artist almost unrecognizable from the kid on Blue Slide Park. Following Blue Slide Park’s unexpected No. The history of popular music is littered with examples of artists that enjoy a single moment in the spotlight and never understand how to innovate beyond it. “A lot of the reviews were more on me as a person,” he said. Miller admitted in a 2013 Complex interview that he was so distraught by the criticism that he became addicted to promethazine, or lean, as a result. Critics hated the album, comparing Miller to frat-rap auteurs Asher Roth and Chiddy Bang Pitchfork in particular savaged Blue Slide Park with a 1.0 rating out of 10, describing Miller as a “crushingly bland, more intolerable version of Wiz Khalifa without the chops, desire, or pocketbook for enjoyable singles.” It was like ‘diet, carrots, and Mac Miller.’” Released two months before his 20th birthday, Blue Slide Park finds Miller rapping about crazy parties and getting money his personality is effervescent, but his similes are clumsy and the production includes a grab-bag of dissenting styles. “There was this time when I was the most Googled thing on the internet. “When I first started, I thought I was going to be the biggest thing in the world,” Miller told Vulture, in an interview that ran online one day prior to his passing. Anyone who doubted his charisma or commercial potency just had to take one look at the numbers to see that Miller had garnered a true, dedicated following. 1 debut of Blue Slide Park in 2011 showed that there really was a movement around Miller. That combination - output plus live shows plus online engagement - represented the standard playbook for an aspiring rapper hoping to spark a grassroots movement in the early 2010s. a relentless touring schedule, with 2,000-capacity shows aimed at young teens and a buoyant social-media personality that extended to an uncanny sense of maximizing YouTube views. So how did Miller do it in 2011? In the pre-streaming era, the teen rapper broke through via the digital sales of successful mixtapes, like 2010’s K.I.D.S. Dre’s The Chronic and Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle by the time Dogg Food was released, and the group wrangled Snoop in for its lead single, “New York, New York.” (“I did it all without a Drake feature,” Miller later boasted on the track “Here We Go.”) For comparison’s sake, Death Row Records mainstays Tha Dogg Pound had already guested on Dr. Miller had not guested on any major hip-hop projects ahead of his debut album, and Blue Slide Park includes zero featured acts on its track list. Miller topped the Billboard 200 without any meaningful radio airplay or breakthrough single his highest-charting song prior to the album release, “Frick Park Market,” had peaked at No. ![]() 27) at the age of 26 - accomplished that No. Looking back nearly seven years later, however, the way Miller - who died of an apparent overdose on Friday (Sept. The chart feat would be impressive on its own. ![]() Mac Miller Never Stopped Trying to Improve His Craft ![]()
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