Malcolm James McCormick was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a Christian, architect father and a Jewish, photographer mother. He grew up Jewish and spent most of his young years in Pittsburgh attending Winchester Thurston School and later Taylor Allerdice High School. Mac found his path their: music. He taught himself to play the piano, drums, bass, and guitar between parties and classes. His interest in music developed into an interest in rapping; he dubbed himself EZ Mac and released his first mixtape, ‘But My Mackin’ Ain’t Easy,’ when he was just 14. And so began the tragically short music career of a legend…

From his beginnings as the early 2000’s equivalent of a Soundcloud rapper, Mac was bound to be a success; he signed with a label and released his first album, Blue Slide Park, topping the charts in the US. The first songs that I heard by him, Best Day Ever and Donald Trump, came from my sister’s purple iPod (my main source of music); he was the perfect 2000’s rapper. I lost track of him for a long time until he came out with his The Divine Feminine album in 2016; at which time, I fell back in love with him specifically when I heard the song My Favorite Part. My 17th birthday was then blessed with a brand new, much anticipated Mac Miller album; Swimming has since become one of my favorite albums. The song 2009 is so angelic and indescribable from the minute long musical intro to the soft, reminiscent tone that carries the song through to its musical outro.

September 7, 2018 shortly after the release of his final album Swimming, Mac Miller overdosed on a cocktail of fentanyl, alcohol, and cocaine. Though Mac had struggled with mental illness pretty seriously in the months and years leading up to this point, it was rightly ruled an accident. He had been sober on and off but never really found his way out of the drug and party world, but he was so much more than that. His smile, his goofy sense of humor, his angelic voice made a well deserved name for him. Every person that met and artist that worked with him ever said a bad word about him; he was a good man that died too soon (sorry, I’m a little bit more emotional about this one; if you can’t tell, I’m not over it).

Mac broke the world with his records and almost more so with his death. He made it big and remained at the top which says a lot about an artist. The world and I are still reeling in the loss of a great person and a great musician.