I remember sitting in Yearbook class in high school aimlessly wondering around the depths of the 2010ish internet. Some kids were playing the helicopter game on addictinggames, others were playing return man on ESPN, and somehow my good time buddies and I stumbled upon a magical website: thewhiterapperencyclopedia.net. It had pictures of white rappers and pretty funny descriptions about them. We went straight to Youtube to look up their songs but most of them were bad, but not bad enough to be funny so we kept moving down the list.
Finally we got to the Ms and clicked on “Mac Miller”. The picture was of him in a CD store in a Starter Penguins snapback and a tall tee. I know this is hard for you damn kids to understand but in 2010 no one wore snapbacks, not even dads really. Lots of fitted hats in those days. Obviously Snapbacks eventually became the norm and a huge fashion hit and I think Mac played a big part in that and many other trends.Anyways, we clicked on his mixtape link expecting it to be bad but once it started playing we all kind of looked at each other and knew that we were all going to ask our buddy Eric to burn us a copy of his mixtape that night.
So it went. We liked his music, took pride in listening to someone who wasn’t on the radio, and even thought he was a normal kid like us, who just loved to party,skate and hangout with his friends. I remember seeing arguments on Facebook about who “discovered” him first at different local schools in a hipster-esque way. His music started spreading like wildfire and eventually he was the third most googled thing on the internet.
Since he died, I’ve seen people say he was the soundtrack to their high school or college careers and others say he was never a good rapper at all (although Jay-Z disagrees) . I think most of these limited and negative sentiments are from people who think of him in the same light as Asher Roth, Sammy Adams, Mike Posner or Hurricane Chris. As in “yeah I remember that niche rapper that had a few catchy songs I used to drink busch Ice to but haven’t heard from in years”.
Not too long ago I was very bored, scrolling through channels and clicked on an old episode of ‘Drake & Josh’. This show used to be my favorite when I was 10 but man oh man it was very cringe worthy and hard to watch as an older guy. I was watching thinking, there’s no way I ever thought this show was great, the acting is subpar, the jokes are corny and the plots are about as thick as Chernobyl’s phonebook.Then I realized I was 10 when I watched it and they make kids shows to appeal to children.This is probably how many of the people I just described feel when ‘I love college’ comes on their Itunes shuffle after all these years.
A quick gander at Spotify,Instagram or even Pitchfork will show you that Mac, unlike the previously mentioned rappers, still has a massive following to his unique,complicated and compelling career. He stopped wearing a backpack and talking about shoes a long time ago but many of his fans never stopped listening, even though the music he puts out today is a far cry from his early happy go lucky party ballads. As John Mayer Put it “He made a quantum leap in his music. That’s incredibly hard to do, to evolve and get better and more focused while your career is already underway.”
I think that is what I’ll remember best about Mac Miller. When I was 16 I loved his lackadaisical music about smiling and partying with his friends and as I got older, I felt like I aged with his music. Each album was a little deeper, a little less happy go lucky and a little darker. Not many 26 year olds can relate to Nikes on my feet like they could when they were teenagers but many probably can relate to 2009, a song about the hardships of becoming an adult and the changes that come with lost youth.
He transitioned from lyrics like “Lace em up lace em up lace em, blue suede shoes crispy like bacon” (2010) to
” And sometimes, sometimes I wish I took a simpler route
Instead of havin’ demons that’s as big as my house, mhmm
Have a ball with a dribble and bounce
‘Cause the party ain’t over ’til they’re kickin’ me out, yeah
Isn’t it funny? We can make a lot of money
Buy a lot of things just to feel a lot of ugly” (2017) and it sucks we will have to move forward without his ever evolving,insightful and honest commentary on this strange train ride we call life.
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