You don’t go down in history because you overdosed. “Overdosing is just not cool,” Miller concedes, looking back on that period. Other artists, from Wiz Khalifa to Chance the Rapper, really took to him, in an abnormally genuine-seeming way.Īnother very difficult thing to revisit is The Fader’s 2016 documentary Stopped Making Excuses, particularly studio footage from 2012 in which French Montana is visibly and vocally alarmed at Miller’s lean intake.
Guys with better critical reps (and a fraction of the sales) but a shared sense of unease and adventure. 3 anyway), and palling around with the likes of Earl Sweatshirt, Vince Staples, Ab-Soul, and Schoolboy Q. mansion, fretting that he couldn’t find his challenging sophomore album, Watching Movies With the Sound Off, in Target (it debuted at no. He had more sonic kinship with the likes of Odd Future than any boldface pop stars. That record inspired vicious reviews and a palpable sense of skepticism - 2009 was also the year of the Asher Roth novelty hit “I Love College,” icky proof that white rappers could still enjoy a quick path to pop success, but could just as swiftly lapse into ruinous self-parody.īut Miller quickly got weirder, and harder to dismiss as a panderer. 1 on the Billboard chart, the first independently distributed album to do so in 16 years. Kickin’ Incredibly Dope Shit) was a minor underground sensation, and his 2011 debut album, Blue Slide Park, was a major mainstream sensation, debuting at no. The song is an uneasy nod to the time right before Miller became famous. He sounds at peace, but the sort of peace that requires years of turmoil to achieve. “Nowadays all I do is shine / Take a breath and ease my mind.” His half-rapped verses alternate contentment (“Every day I wake up and breathe / I don’t have it all but that’s alright with me”) with hints of the struggle to keep that contentment (“Sometimes I wish I took a simpler route / Instead of havin’ demons that’s as big as my house”). (He brought along the string quartet for his charmingly loose Tiny Desk Concert that same month.) “I don’t need to lie no more,” the chorus begins, Miller’s singing voice frail and hushed and utterly convincing. Born Malcolm James McCormick in Pittsburgh in 1992, Miller put out Swimming, his fifth album and the fifth to go top five on the Billboard album chart, in early August “2009” is the penultimate track and startling comedown, buoyed by strings and delicate piano, a queasy power ballad and tender love letter to what seemed to be a new, calmer, stabler version of himself.
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