Mac Miller Tugs Heartstrings from the Grave

Hip-hop icon's posthumous work cements his talent

It has been almost two years since Mac Miller passed away due to a tragic drug overdose. 

On Sep. 7, 2018, his death rattled the hip-hop community, as it was not even a month after he had just released his album “Swimming.” Only a 26-year-old, Miller’s career, though spanning nearly a decade, seemed like it was on an unfinished arc that suddenly halted on Sep. 7, 2018. 

More than a year later, on Jan. 17, 2020, Miller released his first posthumous studio album, “Circles” with the help of music producer Jon Brion. 

It is unclear as to how much creative freedom Brion had with the album after Miller’s death, but it is obvious that the lyrics are entirely Miller’s. 

While the release of this album may have emotionally startled some fans, as Miller’s birthday would have been two days after its release, it certainly brings a sense of closure as well. 

“Circles” is the culmination of years of Miller honing his own unique sound across the album’s 12 tracks. He envisioned the album to be the connecting piece of an unfinished loop, hence the album’s name and its relationship to his last album, “Swimming.” Like his past albums, “Circles” touches on issues of depression and anxiety—how the hard times drag on forever while the good days are short-lived. However, this time there’s a more optimistic tone. 

In all of his albums, Miller writes about his “cluttered mind,” how he wishes he could escape his own head. In “Good News,” Miller compares the recovery process to spring cleaning, and raps about how people only want to hear the positive parts of his life, never the negative. 

In “Surf,” Miller sings, “Sometimes I get lonely / Not when I’m alone / But it’s more when I’m standin’ in crowds that I’m feelin’ the most on my own.” No doubt Miller pulls at the heartstrings, conveying how his depression makes him feel like an outsider among the people who support him the most. 

But there are moments of clarity that affirm the immense love his fans and the hip-hop community hold for him. On the same track, Miller understands, “And I know that somebody knows me / I know somewhere, there’s home / I’m startin’ to see that all I have to do is get up and go.”

For Miller, “Circles” is essentially a series of reminders that healing from years of pain is not an overnight process. It takes time. “‘Fore I start to think about the future / First can I please get through a day?” he asks on “Complicated.” His lyrics possess a plainness that gives his fans an open look into the complexity of his pain. Even when his words fail him, his wispy, sometimes mumbly voice conveys his hurt. 

Miller always struggled balancing his inner child with his old soul. His goofy personality made for playful raps, and his love of music history gave his sound a distinctive, nostalgic aura. 

While he was never able to reconcile these parts of his identity, “Circles” is a good attempt at doing so. 

Miller offered subtle, softer songs that convey authentic pain, suffering and hope, demonstrating that he no longer felt a need for musical frills to assert his place in the music industry. He felt comfortable enough in his music to express his true self. 

While his past albums evoke an air of fatality, “Circles” is a sensitive and intimate look into Miller’s head and his thought process regarding recovery. His use of foreboding piano instrumentals and jazzy rap beats is a simultaneous acknowledgment of his demons and the people who support him despite his problems. 

A beautiful goodbye for one of the greatest musicians of the last decade, it is poetic that Miller’s final album represents his emotional and musical transformation over the years.