Mac Miller

A mere fifteen years old when he started making an impression in the Pittsburgh rap scene, Mac Miller had reached the last year of his teens when his single "Donald Trump" broke into the Billboard Hot 100. Later that year (2011) his debut album was released. Blue Slide Park sold so well in its first week that it became the first independently distributed album to hit the top of the Billboard 200 since the mid-1990s.

Over the course of five albums, Miller’s shifted his vocal delivery towards a laid back, languid style that was more expressive and soulful. Singing and rapping became entwined. His lyrical focus embraced love (The Divine Feminine) and his own mental health struggles (Swimming). Mac Miller lost his battle with depression in 2018, at the tragically young age of twenty-six, when an a drug cocktail overdose ended his life. Those who supplied the drugs received hefty gaol terms in 2022.

Swimming was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album in 2018. A final studio album, Circles, was in production at the time of Miller’s death and was released posthumously in January 2020.