Mac Miller, rapper who wrestled with fame and addiction, dies at 26

Mac Miller, a Pittsburgh rapper who built a cult following with low-key charisma and intimate verses, died Friday at his home in the San Fernando Valley in California. He was 26.

His family released a statement confirming the death but said it had “no further details as to the cause of his death at this time.”

Miller had recently released his fifth full-length album, “Swimming,” which opened at No 3 on the Billboard album chart. An early internet success story, he topped the chart with his independent debut, “Blue Slide Park,” in 2011, the first indie album to do so in 16 years.

Although he began as a mischievous party-starter, Miller, who often made his own beats, turned toward darker sounds and motifs. He rapped about substance abuse, having spoken in interviews about an addiction to prescription opiate cough syrup. And he cultivated a following with bracing lyrics about struggling with depression.

“I really wouldn’t want just happiness,” Miller said in an interview this week in Vulture, addressing his mental health. “And I don’t want just sadness either. I don’t want to be depressed. I want to be able to have good days and bad days.”

In 2016, Miller found a more extreme form of fame through a romantic relationship with pop star Ariana Grande. He appeared on “The Way,” a 2013 collaboration with Grande that reached No 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, his highest-charting single. Grande announced this year that the couple had broken up.

In May, Miller was arrested in Los Angeles after his Mercedes G-Wagon hit a utility pole. He was charged in August with two counts of driving under the influence.

“I needed that,” he said in a radio interview this summer. “I needed to run into that light pole and literally, like, have the whole thing stop.”

Days later, in a statement, Grande referred to her relationship with Miller as “toxic” and criticised those who attributed the breakup to his accident. “I have cared for him and tried to support his sobriety,” she wrote.

Malcolm McCormick was born Jan 19, 1992. His mother is a photographer and his father an architect. They and a brother are among his survivors.

Miller began rapping as a teenager and released several mix tapes before signing with Rostrum, a local independent label. He was an astute, intricate rapper; as a lyricist he was a classicist in an era that had largely turned away from that style.

But he was also light-hearted. “Blue Slide Park” bounced from one jubilant song to the next in the party-rap tradition of the late 1980s and early ‘90s. With his 2013 record “Watching Movies With the Sound Off,” his music was becoming more serious and more technically accomplished.

He was a producer as well, sometimes under the alias Larry Fisherman, and his beats were lush and jazz-and-soul-inflected.

Early in his career, Miller had a platinum-selling single with “Donald Trump” — “take over the world when I am on my Donald Trump” — invoking the real-estate developer before his turn to politics. (Trump said at the time that he was proud of Miller but added that maybe the rapper “should pay me a lot of money.”) Miller later expressed regret over the song.

In 2012 his home studio in Los Angeles became a hub for a young generation of West Coast rappers, including members of the Odd Future collective. It was also the location for a comedic quasi-reality show, “Mac Miller and the Most Dope Family,” on MTV2.

But the wages of fame were taking their toll. By 2013 he was speaking publicly about his addiction, and his 2015 album “GO:OD AM” — his first on a major label, Warner Bros. — dealt with it explicitly. All five of his studio albums debuted in the Top 5 of the Billboard album chart. “Swimming” was released last month.

© 2018 New York Times News Service