The digital age has democratized the relationship between the hip-hop underground and the mainstream. Artists like Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T. and Tyler the Creator are proving to be the torch-bearers for rap’s new world order, practically willing themselves into popular relevance with never-ending touring schedules, relentless self-promotion, and, most notably, larger-than-life web presences.
Only in this era could Mac Miller, a supremely talented 19-year-old MC and Taylor Allderdice High School graduate, be considered a veteran.
With four heralded, download-only mixtapes under his belt since his junior year, a sold-out national tour, a spot on XXL Magazine‘s 2011 Freshmen 11 and truckloads of digital hype, Miller (real name: Malcom McCormick) is anything but an overnight sensation. Day in, day out, he works to keep himself in the national conversation about hip hop’s best MCs.
But again, like most of the new wave of American rap, Miller isn’t being packaged and sold by a major label. Like his close friend Khalifa, Miller opted to sign with Pittsburgh indie Rostrum Records in 2010, maintaining close creative control over his music, image and career in general (including a clothing line and more than a dozen music videos). But Miller knows it’s not just about having control; it’s what you do with it.
“There is no right or wrong way to become successful in music. There are so many people who have talent and so many people that are working towards the same thing I am,” says Miller. “What works best for me is dedication and always thinking about what’s next.”
Miller thrived in his early years on eclecticism. Growing up, he learned to play guitar, drums, piano and bass by age 6, eventually absorbing every type of music he could get his hands on — Bob Marley, A Tribe Called Quest, The Beatles. By 15, he was already working his way into Pittsburgh’s hip-hop scene, going to battle against MCs 10 years his senior and earning respect one verse at a time. In 2009, at age 17, he made it to the final four in Rhyme Calisthenics, the MC competition at Shadow Lounge.
“The thing about Pittsburgh is, if you can’t rap, no one likes you. You can’t get by doing the minimum,” says Miller. “For me, it was never about being the young kid who was trying to rap. It was about rapping better than anyone else.”
At the time, the city’s music was gaining attention for acts like Boaz, Girl Talk and Wiz Khalifa, and that inspired Miller to dive head-first into the scene itself. Ultimately, he connected with the production team behind ID Labs, the studio that has produced Khalifa, among other famous names.
ID Labs studio-manager Josh Everette got Miller started with producer Big Jerm and engineer E Dan, schooling the young MC in the art of production. “[ID Labs] came through and gave me a foundation. I just keep building on it,” says Miller.
“It’s always easy to work with artists who love the studio process, and Mac’s definitely one of them,” says E Dan. “Like us, he just has fun in the studio and it makes for a less pressured environment … he’s really open to the creative process.”
E Dan and Big Jerm eventually helped Miller get one of his early mixtapes off the ground with the completion of 2009’s The High Life, producing the majority of the tracks. (Everette even makes a guest appearance on “Fly High in Her Nikes.”) By 2010, Miller had signed with Rostrum.
The K.I.D.S. mixtape, issued in August 2010 and packed with classic ’90s East Coast beats and slippery verses about partying and skipping school, garnered Miller his biggest spotlight yet. Along with a slew of Rex Arrow-directed cinema veritè-style videos that garnered 30 million views on YouTube, he received nods from The Source, XXL and Complex Magazine. Eventually, he landed guest spots on the Smoker’s Club Tour (with New Orleans MC Curren$y and Big K.R.I.T.) and on Wiz Khalifa’s homecoming shows at Stage AE in December.
By January 2011, Mac Miller was a name that rap blogs were tripping over each other to drop, and the young MC was tapped to be featured on the cover of XXL’s coveted “Freshmen 11” issue, a spot that Khalifa had snagged a year earlier.
With this momentum, Miller built up anticipation for the March release of the mixtape Best Day Ever, his most ambitious project to date. BDE features an eclectic and distinguished list of producers including Just Blaze, 9th Wonder collaborator Khrysis, and the Cool Kids’ own Chuck Inglish (though ID Labs produced a majority of the cuts). The result is a restlessly modern collection of varying rap production styles, with little evidence of the classic hip-hop vibe that seemed so pervasive on K.I.D.S.
“On BDE, I just wanted to expand [the sound] and keep pushing the limits. I have all different kinds of songs in my arsenal, and I wanted to push myself, and my fans, creatively,” says Miller. “That eclectic vibe is the shit.”
The ID Labs-produced title track possesses only a bare, shimmering synth line and faint splashes of percussion. Miller’s smooth, cocksure flow is front and center and culminates with an effortlessly melodic chorus that practically soars. The downtempo, stridently underground “She Said,” produced by Khrysis, allows Miller to back away from his pop instincts as he rhymes over an ominous bass line and lurching beat.
The Sap-produced “Donald Trump,” meanwhile, might be Miller’s most accomplished composition yet. Over an infectious, school choir-infused beat, Miller spits some seriously dexterous couplets and defiantly challenges haters to step up and take notice: “You know how much you love it when you get it in abundance / Give a fuck about a budget when you always be the subject of discussion / but it’s nothing when you stop and just say fuck it / ‘Cause you walking out in public and hear ’em talkin’ rubbish.” This song, more than any other track on BDE, shows Miller maturing as rapper with each verse.
By early March, thousands of followers stalked Miller’s Facebook and Twitter pages for any shred of news regarding the free download of BDE. After release countdowns on multiple Pittsburgh music websites and leaked album art and lyrics, BDE dropped on Fri., March 11, at 10:15 pm. By the following Monday morning, there were 200,000 downloads.
“I think we’re up to 400,000 downloads now,” says a slightly hoarse Miller over the phone, talking in between performances at South by Southwest, in Austin. The response for BDE, still going strong weeks later, surprised even Miller: “I knew I built up a fan base, but I never really knew how big that fan base was. It was really cool to see.”
Along with his upcoming summer spots on New York City’s Governor’s Ball, with Big Boi and Girl Talk, and The Roots’ Picnic in Philadelphia, he has a handful of collaborations on the tip, including an upcoming project with an undisclosed roster of “hip-hop legends,” and is planning a blowout homecoming show in Pittsburgh later this year. But Miller’s work is never done.
“What has gotten me where I am today has been the determination, the dedication to put work before everything,” he says. “It’s like, ‘What can I do to be productive? How can I get in the studio? What is there for me to be doing right now, so I’m not just sitting on my ass?’ I’ve always just worked hard, and I don’t plan on slowing down.”
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2011.
“eventually absorbing every type of music he could get his hands on — Bob Marley, A Tribe Called Quest, The Beatles.”
WOW DOES HE HAVE A SCARFACE POSTER ON THE WALL AND DRINK BEER TOO??
the lyrics posted in the article are utterly banal. this kid fucking sucks.
gregg gillis is a piece of shit hack, and wiz khalifa sounds like he has down syndrome–which is apparently the formula for success.
And Gingy, how’s your hip-hop career going? Still blowing up the spot in places you can’t pronounce, or just wasting a lot of time and energy barking about how eminently respectable local artists don’t deserve any of their hard-won fame?
Sour grapes much?
Yeah man…I cannot countenance this hatred.Regardless of whether or not you like the music being made, (and it is your right to express yourself I am not saying that you can’t) you have to realize that firing straight hatred in a public forum dedicated to these artists for this day makes you seem bitter and jealous.
A more profitable usage of your time would be making your own music and if you are the rarest of birds in 2011, a straight up fan, then why even bother showing your distaste? Let them do their thing and listen to the music you enjoy.
This is a gigantic net positive for the city of Pittsburgh and its hip-hop/electronic music scene and these cats all worked extremely hard to get to this point. Appreciate that and accept that they are gong to do their thing irrespective of your opinion.
And as a rapper myself its my opinion on a technical level that the rhyme scheme he used in the quoted section was sharp and his sylable game was on point as evidenced by the matching at the beginning and end of each bar for syllabic continuity, an important staple of lyricism.
I’m glad dude is putting Allderdice, Squirrel Hill, and Pittsburgh on the map. If you can ride with that outcome then please do. If you can’t I’d say lead your life and let him lead his.
if i wanted to read about teenybopper garbage like this i’d go pick up a copy of xxl magazine. i expect the local alt weekly to cover artists doing interesting things, not punk kids who know how to market themselves through social media.
the idea that squirrel hill belongs on a hip-hop map is so fucking ridiculous i don’t even know what to say.
How does he suck? He is excelling among artist across the US. He had his new EP drop and it was 11th over in albums on iTunes this week. Obviously your one of the few.
Picking on people with Down’s Syndrome? Really?
You would really have to TRY to be lamer than that.
Who died and made you Kool Herc? You really deem yourself the arbiter of what communities can and can not be on the “hip-hop map” as it is termed in our discussion? I think you adequately proved my point that you don’t disagree with the music on its merits but rather just want to vent your hatred of certain artists which seems to the casual observer to stem from jealousy.
Groups from East Pittsburgh in general and Squirrel Hill in particular have been making music, touring, and in general contributing to world hip-hop culture for almost two decades now. Mac Miller’s success simply validates this proposition and does literally put Squirrel Hill on the map. In his videos shot at neighborhood house parties, Whiteman Park, and other locales, viewers and fans from all around the planet can see the unique flavor of hip-hop that Pittsburgh, East Pittsburgh, and Squirrel Hill/Point Breeze, Shadyside has to offer. That’s a fact, you can stick your hands in your ears and scream to the walls but all of this has already transpired and then you’d just be delusional.
Now back to areas being on the “map”. Inexact term of art as that may be, the ethos or rap is such that any area deserves to be on the map and arrives there when interest and notice is created in it by the music coming out of it. There is no committee that makes these choices and you ain’t on it even if it did exist.
You believe your City paper’s mandate is to cover local bands who do not market themselves effectively through social media? That’s a narrow balliwick to be sure. Methinks that some of these bands may have you or your friends in them. I’d also point out that you predicated your hatred ostensibly on Mac’s alleged lack of musical quality and then switched to the contention that him marketing himself effectively is somehow a strike against him in the great and hidden book of musical quality available I’m sure only to you. Problem is you contradict yourself there and pretty much everywhere. You must be really mad that these dudes are achieving their dreams and making more in a night than you prolly do in a month (in Wiz’s case a year I’d guess). You are as always entitled to your voice, but your logic is flawed enough that it warranted a response. Finally I’d say that you should not hide behind a moniker if you’re going to take a shot at someone or their community so stridently. Anyone who can google my name up here will know who I am. Its the name I rapped under for 13 years out of Squirrel Hill proudly. I took that name on 10 world tours to places like Japan and Brazil and Poland. And I’m very proud that Mac Miller is going to do his thing in a gigantic level. There’s an old sephardic saying: “judge me by my flavor, not my color..” (color meaning exterior, not race) Its a good one to live by. If you want your hate to be taken seriously then you gotta hate on the merits. Otherwise you just sound bitter and ill informed.
he sucks, you’re probably worse, shut the fuck up
Don’t entertain the peanut gallery. Mac Miller is hugely popular WORLDWIDE and will only continue to grow. I manage a hip hop website in Pittsburgh and the majority of my traffic is from fans googling about Mac Miller. If you don’t like him that’s fine but he’s going to get along well regardless. 🙂
no shit he’s popular. most people are dumb.
i know people in this city have a massive inferiority complex, but not everything that comes from here is worth celebrating.
a white midget punk rapping about “fags”, smoking weed, and senior skip day? save it for fucking tiger beat.
ummm, yeah Mac Miller (one of the WORST names ever) is just another Asher Roth, white/frat-party rapper. Big deal! Everyone went bananas over Asher, now no one cares. Miller sings pointless lame-ass lyrics over 90s era beats, SO WHAT!!!??? He is so boring. Sure, 16 year Pittsburgh girls trapped in a 90s timewarp might eat this garbage up, as will a few moronic hipsters. But this guy is about as serious to hip-hop as Justin Bieber.
As per Miller’s potential to be huge among tweens, yes, that is a possibility. But as far as him being talented or interesting, that is a whole other debate. He sucks.
And who wants another white boy rapper? NO ONE.
This guy is almost like something dreamed up by the Onion!