Mac Miller was one of the finest young rappers out of Pittsburgh. He was a record producer, singer and self-taught instrumentalist who broke into the music scene in 2011 with the release of his mixtape Best Day Ever and album Blue Slide Park. His style of music is described as rock hip hop and he once said that he is inspired by fellow Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa, The Tribe Quest, Big L, and the Beastie Boys.
Before biting the dust in September 2018 he had dropped his 5th studio album and he was at the verge of embarking on a promotional tour of the album. The talented star has a total of 12 mixtapes, 41 musical videos, 31 singles of which some of them have been certified either gold or platinum. Moreover, he constantly voiced his struggles with substance and drug abuse which he started at the age of 15, stating how he was coping with the struggles. It is claimed that the struggle eventually saw his end.
Who Is Mac Miller?
Mac Miller was born as Malcolm James McCormick born on 19th January 1992 and raised by his parents, Karen Mayers and Mark McCormick in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had a Jewish ancestry and upheld the Jewish practices. Being born in the US, Mac Miller had an American nationality. His father is a Christian and an Architect while his mother is a photographer.
The 5 feet 8 inches rapper early life was in Point Breeze, part of Pittsburgh and he grew up with his elder brother, Miller McCormick who is a graphic designer and would later become his album cover designer. Mac Miller attended the Winchester Thurston School and Allderdice High School. His interest and sojourn into music started at his age of 6 when he was enrolled for piano classes and he later added bass guitar and drums to his set of acquired skills.
Prior to his moniker Mac Miller, he first used EZ Mac as a stage name at the age 14 when he made his first stage appearance and at the age of 15, he had decided to venture full scale into music, settling for the hip-hop genre and he made his first ever mixtape in 2007, But My Mackin’ Ain’t Easy.
He was in a rap group called The Ill Spoken which he formed alongside Beedie and they made a mixtape in 2008 titled How High. He later launched out his solo career and signed on to Rostrum record label to mine his trade. They released his work on K.I.D.S which won him two awards in August 2010 at the Pittsburgh Hip Hop Music Awards and with time he evolved into the Mac Miller that we know today.
His first album, Blue Slide Park dropped the following year in November 2011 and jumped into the top spot of the Billboard 200 Chart making him the 3rd person, whose album was independently marketed and distributed to achieve the feat, after Dogg Food album of Tha Dogg Pound released in 1995.
The rapper by 2013 founded his own record label, REMember Music with production name “Larry Fisherman” which he used in producing songs in a contract (deal worth $10 million) partnership with the Warner Bros Record Company. He also signed on artists like SZA, Lil B, Riff Raff, among others.
Five of Mac Miller’s studio albums, including The Blue Slide Park, Watching Movie With Sound is Off, and Swimming, have all been well received and have been commercial successes while some of his songs are still climbing music charts. Some of them have been certified both Gold, Platinum by the Recording Industry of America Association (RIAA) such as, Donald Trump (Best Day Ever), Party on the Fifth Ave, (Blue Slide Park), Loud (Macadelic), Weekend (GO:OD AM), to mention a few of them.
He has also collaborated with other notable artists in their hit songs like Wiz Khalifa, Bun B, Maroon 5, Andrea Paak, Ariana Grande, Tyler, Digg Simmon, and DJ Carnage, and others. The singer’s net worth is estimated to be within $14 million, the wealth was accumulated from all the sales of his records, tours, and even his reality television series earlier launched Mac Miller and The Most Dope Family.
At his death, his will and testament drafted in 2013 left a large chunk of the wealth to his parents and his brother Miller McCormick with his lawyer David Byrnes, acting as the executioner of the will.
What Was Mac Miller’s Relationship With Ariana Grande?
Mac Miller and popular pop singer Ariana Grande started out as friends after they met on social media in November 2012. Their friendship began with a tweet that blossomed into public displays of affection. They gradually built up their relationship, they were besotted with each other and seen practically everywhere together.
The pair started working together in their musical careers, lending their voices to their respective albums. Their first ever collaboration was in Baby It’s Cold Outside, followed by Ariana’s hit song The Way, from then on they became more intimate.
In 2016, the late lover boy who was totally sold out to his relationship with the pop star, devoted an entire 10-track album to Grande. He was also present in her Manchester concert in the United Kingdom before the explosions interrupted the show in August 2017.
They quit the relationship in May 2018 with Ariana Grande taking the lead on that front. Grande cited his substance abuse of as her reason for quitting the relationship, a decision that left Mac Miller slipping further into his substance abuse, depression, and even alcoholism. Although the two tried to remain friends even after their break up, it seemed Mac Miller never really recovered from the shock of her exit from his life.
A few weeks later, it was revealed that the pop star has quickly hooked up with comedian Pete Davidson perhaps this news further taunted and aggravated the troubled state of rapper Mac Miller a notch higher. The rapper got into a few more troubles with the law few weeks after the breakup. He crashed his Mercedes G-Wagon onto a power pole and was later picked up on the charge of Driving Under Influence (DUI) misdemeanor but before he was to be charged, he kicked the bucket joining the history of iconic musicians and celebrities such as Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Lil Peep, etc who have gone into the other world via drugs and substances abuse.
How Did He Die?
On 7th September 2018, the world was greeted with the shocking news of the untimely demise of Mac Miller after his dead body was discovered by a friend who went to visit him at his studio home in San Fernando Valley, California at about mid day. On arrival of paramedics, the Self-care crooner was pronounced dead when efforts made to revive him failed.
The obvious conclusion was that he died from overdose of substance he abused over the years. His assistant affirmed that the record producer was a constant user of substances like opiates, cocaine, codeine, prescription med, promethazine and he had depended heavily on them, including alcohol.
The Los Angeles coroner carried out an autopsy on his recovered body to ascertain the true cause of his death, they have not made public the report so far but body of the deceased has been released to his family for burial. The 26 year old rapper’s final resting place is the Home-Wood Cemetery, Pittsburgh, where he had shot one of his videos in the same cemetery years back.
