Mac Miller

Mac Miller grew up in public. He started out making breezy, party-ready rap in Pittsburgh, and his debut Blue Slide Park became the first independently distributed debut album to top the US chart since 1995.

From there his music grew looser, jazzier and far more personal. Watching Movies with the Sound Off and the mixtape Faces got dark and woozy, while The Divine Feminine and Swimming leaned into live funk and soul, with Thundercat's bass on Swimming and Mac's increasingly warm singing voice. He died in 2018, weeks after Swimming came out, and Circles, completed by producer Jon Brion, followed in 2020.