That being said, I hadn’t really gotten into Swimming until about two weeks before Mac died. Nevertheless, I took plenty of long showers as I struggled to adjust to my Emerson dorm. Several of these were set to the sound of his Tiny Desk Concert, the set list of which contained only songs off of Swimming.įrom Swimming, I launched into a much deeper listen through Mac Miller’s music. Before he passed, I had really only listened to Faces, his mixtape from 2014, all the way through.

Macadelic, the mixtape dropped the two years before, was a bit too much for me. The sex noises that transitioned between tracks were not what I was looking for. Blue Side Park (2011), Watching Movies with the Sound Off (2013), and GO:OD AM (2015), his first three studio albums, were all released years before I was into the kind of rap music he was putting out. Faces, however, was something I really got into because it was all I had to listen to on planes. Because it’s such a weird and versatile album, I got something different each time I listened.

There are jazz-based piano rap tracks like “Ave Maria” or “Diablo”, mixed with harder tracks like “Insomniak” or “Malibu”. It ends in an optimistic place with “New Faces”, an upbeat song, with good bars, and a solid Earl Sweatshirt feature that brings the record to a close. For the musical diversity and association with travel, Faces will always be close to my heart.Īnyways, after his death, I re-upped myself on his music. I watched interviews, read articles, found any form of media that would help me feel like he was still there. I found a lot more mixtapes than I expected. They covered all different styles of rap: harder rap, like Stolen Youth (2013), the EP under the name “Larry Fisherman” with Vince Staples, and others that are much softer, like You (2012), his Jazz album under the name “Larry Lovestein & The Velvet Revival.” Miller’s versatility as an artist is incredible.

Making of diablo mac miller