Latest / DISGRACELAND / Mac Miller: Hallucinations, Counterfeit Pills, and a Standoff with the Most Powerful Man in the World

Transcript

Mac Miller: Hallucinations, Counterfeit Pills, and a Standoff with the Most Powerful Man in the World · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: mac Miller are insane. He was threatened by the most
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: powerful man in the world, rejected by some of the
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: most powerful taste makers in the business, dumped by one
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of the most popular singers in the universe. He self
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: medicated with drugs and alcohol to combat feelings of depression
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and inadequacy. He hallucinated while hold up in the recording
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: studio alone. He was charged with a hit and run
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: when he drunkenly ran his car into a telephone pole
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and fled the scene. He was just twenty six years
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: old when counterfeit oxy cotone pills laced with a lethal
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: dose of fentanyl contributed to his unexpected death. And mac
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: miller process see ups and downs of life through his music,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: great music, music that became exponentially stronger and more profound
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: as he got older. Unlike that clip I played for
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: you at the top of the show that wasn't great music.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: That was a preset loop for my melotron called ham
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and Eggs MK. Two. I played you that clip because
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I can't afford the rights to someone like you by Adele,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: And why would I play you that specific slice of
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: vocal acrobatic cheese. Could I afford it? Because that was
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the number one song in America on November eighth, twenty eleven,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and that was the day that mac Miller released his
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: debut studio album, Blue Slide Park, a release that was
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: met with an unexpected critical backlash, a backlash that led
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: mac Miller down some previously unexplored and increasingly dark rabbit holes.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: On this episode, threats, rejection, hallucinations, a hit and run, counterfeit, pills,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and mac Miller. I'm Jake Brennan and this is disgraceland.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: The coffin was just big enough to fit him five
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: foot seven, not an inch more, not some flashy shit either,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: a basic pine box. Honest, and though it was a
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: real coffin, this wasn't the real deal. Mack Miller was
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: very much alive. The song's playback continued, Mack sang along
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: and pointed a flashlight up at the lid. With his
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: other hand, he used a knife to carve two words
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: into the soft wood memento, Maury, remember that you have
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: to die. Sure. The whole concept for this music video
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: was more than a little cliched. Mac Miller reminding himself
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: of life's and permanence. While stuck inside a coffin, mac
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Miller buried alive by the anxious thoughts inside his head.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Mac Miller has to die so that mac Miller can live.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: But cliches are cliches for a reason, because they're true,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: because they're honest. Just like this cheap pine box, life
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: buried you, and you found a way to punch up
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: through the dirt and the worms and all the other
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: ly fucking creepy crawleys that lived six feet under in
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: darkness and roth. Life put you in a box, and
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: you said, nah, no today, motherfucker, and you fought your
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: way out, fought your way out, fought your way at a
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: version two point zero or three point zero or whatever
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: very end of yourself you were becoming. This time it
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: was two thousand and eight, but mac Miller was twenty six.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: He was filming the video for his new single Self Care,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: off his upcoming fifth studio, All Swimming. He'd been through
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the ringer of time and time again, just like everybody,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: and this time was no different. Told he wasn't good enough,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: nearly convinced he was trying to be someone who wasn't.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: His heart had been broken The drugs were always just
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: a text message away, whether you were truly in need
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: or you were just bored. Which one was he in
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: need or just bored? He wasn't sure, but regardless he
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: knew he'd showed a text to the man. Soon enough, Drugs, heartbreak,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the pressure of fame. It was all your basic life
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: and death shit. And you respond to life and death
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: shit one of two ways. You either let it all
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: bury you, or you punch up through the pine box
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: coffin like Uma Thurman and Kill Bill Volume two, and
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: you get back up, get ready for anything, packed accordingly,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: because there was always more life left to live, and
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: because any of us could leave this planet at any moment.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: It was like Arthur Lee sang in that song, Everybody's
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: got to live and Everybody's gonna die. He knew what
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: was up. Arthur Lee was dope, and so we're Dylan
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: and the Beatles. Mac fucked with all those guys. He
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: fucked with John Lennon the most. That was John's face
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: right there, inked on Max's forearm. John was honest, raw, real.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: John was just as real as Tribe or Wu Tang
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: or big L. Fuck Big L. Now that was Max.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Shit He could still remember the first time he heard
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Big L's debut album What Was He fourteen fifteen. That
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: record inspired Mac to rap for the first time. But
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Big L was from Harlem, and that was a long
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: way from Point Breeze. It was obvious that Mac had
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: talent from the jump, but rhyming like he was from
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the projects in New York City and not some little
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: dude from a nice part of Pittsburgh got him a
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: lot of raised eyebrows. That was then over ten years ago.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: These days, he wasn't trying to be someone else. He
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: was like his boy John Lennon's Circa Help, finally tapping
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: into his true self, into his deepest and darkest feelings,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: just bearing it all. He wore his influences on his sleeve.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Not just outcast M F. Doom and Yea, but Elliot
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Smith poured his head and modest mouse. Life was too
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: short to not sound like yourself. You must remember that
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: you have to die. He read somewhere that back in
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: ancient Rome, slaves used to whisper Momento Maury into the
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: years of the generals after a victory. You were mortal.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Don't get cocky, don't get consumed by Hubris. Hubris was
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: the least of max concerns. He was young and rich,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: but he was humble. It was the other shit he
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: had to worry about, not just the molly and the
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: coke and the yellows and the blues. Drugs came and
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: drugs went. That he got fucked up, but he wasn't
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: fucked at least that's what he told himself. It was
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: the other stuff that consumed him, the real heavy shit rejection. First,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: it was the distracts. They said he was whacked, they
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: said he was weak, long before Snoop Dogg called him
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: White Chocolate. Was just some pale, half Jewish, half Catholic
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: motherfucker from Point Breeze, Point Breeze. Who fucks with Pointbrees anyways, Nobody.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: He had to prove to his peers that he was worthy,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that he had skills, and that he had his own
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: voice and he could hold his own on any stage.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't just as peers. It gave him a
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: hard time. It was his critics too. He was twenty
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: years old when he released Blue Slide Park, his debut
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: full length album, in twenty eleven. It was a huge
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: moment for him. The culmination of hours and years of
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: hard work, a jump to legitimacy after years of releasing
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: mixtapes for free online. It debuted at number one on
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: the Billboard Charts, the first indie record to do that
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: in like fifteen years, but it got savaged in the press.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: XXL magazine compared him not to Big L or Tribe,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: or even his Pittsburgh homeboy Wiz Khalifa, to the fucking
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Jonas brothers. The Spin magazine said it was as if
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the cast of Glee tried to make a rap album
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: and Rolling Stone ad to go and compare him to
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: eminem because of course state how to do that. And Pitchfork,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: the online hub for all things quote unquote hipster, gave
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the record a one point zero rating on their notorious
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: ten point scale. He wasn't prepared for that shit. The
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: reviews destroyed him. He'd only just arrived and he was
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: already getting rejected. That was the first time he had
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to get born again, dust himself off and proved them
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: all wrong. And he really shouldn't have complained. He knew
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: that deep down. He thought about it as he fumbled
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: around on the inside lid of the pine box with
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: his pocket knife. There were others who had gone through
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: worse like Arianna. She went through a waking nightmare the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: year before, the likes of which he could hardly fathom.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Over fourteen thousand, I had just watched her finish her
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: encore at the Manchester Arena. The pink balloons dropped from
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: the rafters. They were everywhere on the floor, in the
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: hands of teenagers, giddy with that indescribable feeling you get
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: from your first real concert. The house lights came up.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Those fourteenth people begin to bottleneck, shuffle from their seats
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: to the exit, and then time stopped. An explosion erupted
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: from just beyond the exit doors in the arena. It
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: actually shook A rush of wind shot inside, followed by
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: thick white smoke and the smell of something rotten. The
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: pink balloons were suddenly swept away and some of them popped.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Hannick set in. Teenage girls were shrieking just beyond those
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: exit doors. Bodies were on the floor, blood and confusion.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Ariana Grande and her crew were insulated backstage, but from
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: back there it sounded like the world as they knew
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: it was coming to an end. Arianna struggled in the
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: aftermath of that tragedy that left twenty three dead, including
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: the suicide bomber, and more than a thousand injured, but
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: she didn't let it stop her. She mourned the victims,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: she grieved, and then she moved forward. She started playing
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: shows again, and those shows became a style for those
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: who needed the most. Ariana was a great role model,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: seacon of strength and support, and one hell of a
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: best friend and lover. But Mac didn't have Arianna anymore.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: She took to Twitter to say their two year relationship
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: was quote unquote toxic, that she had been the glue
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: keeping the two of them together, and then over time
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: she simply became less and less sticky, and now Mack
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: felt like he was coming unstuck. It was like the
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: bad reviews all over again. But losing Ariana was far
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: worse than any barb's pitchfork could lob at him. Love
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: fucking hurt. Even more painful was having to watch Ariana
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: arm in arm with Pete Davidson. Mack pulled his social
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: media accounts, he went dark. People worried, not just the fans,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: but his friends and his family. Good news, man, that's
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: all they wanted to hear. Just the good news, but
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: going dark. That was just his honest reaction. It was
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the truth, even if it didn't sound like the truth.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Mac Miller broke his silence with a video for Self Care,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: released just months after as much to publicize split with
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Ariana Grande. In it, he punches his way out of
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: that coffin, climbs through layers of dirt, and emerges triumphant
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: on the other side. He literally dusts himself off while
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: explosions are upped around him. Mac Miller was ready to
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: live again. But just like love, living was hard. Living
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: was putting yourself through that ringer over and over and
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: coming out on the other side forever changed to once
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: again paraphrase that dope motherfucker, Arthur Lee. Because everybody's gonna live,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: then everybody's gonna die. He was seated in his studio
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: surrounded by face and they were everywhere. They're in the
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: console and on the faders, they're in the speakers and
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: in the back of his chair. They're all over the
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: red walls, big eyes, wide smiles, crows, feet and dimples
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: and uneven teeth, faces inside the half empty bottles of Jamison,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: faces lurking in the styrofoam cups waiting to pounce from
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: underneath the rolled up dollar bills, and the lines of
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: powder in the baggies of weed. Seemed like Mac Miller
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: had done half the drugs in this California valley town.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Just look around. He only needed a pair of eyes
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: to see the place was a denivalicit activity. But the
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: studio was dimly lit and Mac's eyes were half closed.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: The faces oozed out just the same, and they freaked
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: in the fuck out. He buried his head in a blanket,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: but the faces were there too, like the face of
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Easy Mac, a rapper from Alberta who had beef with
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Mac years back. The beef was over that name, Easy Mac,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: because that was the name Mac Miller himself was also
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: using that. This is early in Max's career, and the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: beef didn't last long. Easy Mack was a juvenile name.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Mack was flexing beyond his years. As a kid, he
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: hung out with the older crowd. He grew up fast.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Easy Mac wasn't gonna work, and neither was his given name,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Malcolm McCormick. So he took his brother's first name, Miller,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: and fashioned himself a new name that sounded both grown
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: up and not hokey. Then there were the faces of
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: his so called friends on MySpace, and not just Tom,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that creepy back half turned motherfucker, but all those blog posts, avatars,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: and Twitter handles and Facebook profiles, the ones that got
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: his YouTube hits up into the millions. Those faces morphed
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: into the faces of all those actors, or maybe they
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: weren't real actors. Mac couldn't tell. That was supposed to
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: be the point. Kids from Kids, the Larry Clark movie
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: that inspired Max's first real release, the twenty ten mixtape
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Kids Kids. Telly Casper, Jenny Gumma, Waite Gumma wasn't in
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: that movie. He was in his own movie. But why
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the hell was his face here? Now? Mac was fucked up.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: He wasn't on planet Earth anymore. He was all alone,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: constantly working, nodding his head to the beads coming out
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: of the monitors, writing and rewriting non stop round the clock,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: like he had something to prove, which he did. He
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: wasn't some frat wrap fuckle like they said he was.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: He wasn't a wanna bee, just another white kid trying
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to co opt black culture or stand up to the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: real slim shady. He knew that not everyone did. Some
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: said he was a little too positive, too smiley, that
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: he had won too many rhymes about smoking weed, eating
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: yogurt and going to parties. He hadn't paid his dues,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: wasn't a hood dude, lived a kush life. Son of
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: an architect and a photographer. Not exactly the origin story
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: for a formidable MC from the jump. Mac Miller's journey
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: to respectability and acceptance was a hard one. He figured
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: he could use his charm to turn any hater into
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: a fan, but the backlash received after the release of
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Blue Slide Park was so overwhelming it sent him into
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: a tail span. All the work he put into making
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: that record, and not just the nuts and bolts of
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the record itself, but everything that led up to it,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: the long hours he put it in as a teenager,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: uplated his folks plays, teaching himself piano, guitar, bass, drums,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: writing verses, getting the flow right, leaning into his marbled
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: mouth delivery, then spreading the word online, the mixtapes, the
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: U streams, and then touring playing to whoever showed up,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: getting nervous and puking backstage, maintaining his every man image
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: by crowdsourcing for parties or couches to crash via Twitter.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Even XXL magazines coveted in Freshman cover, which was a
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: huge get for an outsider like Mac Miller, which found
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: him photographed next to other up and comers like Meek Mill,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Big krit And Kendrick and Hindsight. Even that felt like
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: he'd just controlled. The same publication that hailed him as
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: a rising star soon tore him down with a humiliating review.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Everyone talked shit in the hip hop game, from run
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: DMC Beasties to Jay Lil Wayne, but Mac wasn't prepared
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: for all the shit talk that came his way as
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: he became more well known. He needed to get tougher
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: to give less of a fuck, So he dabbled and
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: give less of a fuck extracurriculars Mollie Benzo's oxy coke.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: The bigger the cup of Lean, the better, the syrupy
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: coating laced liquid melodon, the fuck out. The drugs transformed him.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: That infectious smile and gregarious demeanor that won over so
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: many early fans was replaced with the thick skin of
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: a missing throat. He drank Lean not just to get
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: fucked up, but to prove a point that he wasn't
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: what they said he was. He could change, he was
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: being made to change, and he wasn't gonna let anyone
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: look away. He pissed off his boss at his Any label,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: roasting records by drinking lean in his car against the
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: boss's wishes. How when he drank a backstage, it shows
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: his mom watched helplessly from the other side of a
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: security guard. Macadelic, his twenty twelve mixtape, was a drug record.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Through and through. The references were all there to lean
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: to cocaine, to molly, and the aptly named under the
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Influence tour that followed doubled down on all of that,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: and now he was going even further down the rabbit
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: hole he was going to call his latest mixtape Faces.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: It laid bare his anxieties, his depression, his self doubt,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: his drug use, even to suicidal thoughts, and it was
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: inspired by all the hallucinations that followed him around the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: studio and wouldn't leave him alone. The lovers and the fans, yes,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: but also the shit talkers, the doubters, the haters, and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the critics, even his loudest critic, one who began as
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: a fan a fan Mac never wanted, and one who
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: eventually revealed as true colors. Donald Trump was an abstraction,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: at least that's what Mac Miller thought. It was like
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: John Lennon's song about God. Donald Trump is a concept,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: or should I say Donald Trump was a concept by
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: which many measures their baller status, and this, of course
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: was years before Trump ever contemplated running for president of
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: the United States. He was as filthy riche dude, a
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: status symbol, and in the world of hip hop, being
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: rich and powerful like Trump was a status who aspired
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: to like Bruce Wayne or Tony Montana, an unfuck with
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the bule archetype. So when Mac dropped his mixtape Best
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Day Ever in early twenty eleven, it included a banger
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: of a track about living large, taking over the world,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: and leaving haters in the dust. Naturally, he called the
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: song Donald Trump. The video racked up sixteen million views
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: on YouTube and counting the popularity, the clip offered an
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: organic and viral boost ahead of the fall release of
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the Blue Slide Park album, and the views kept coming
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: seventeen million, eighteen million. It seemed that everyone was jumping
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: on the Mac Miller bandwagon, including the song's namesake. By
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the time the video hit twenty million views, Donald Trump
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: took to the Internet in a video praising Mac and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: naturally basking in the attention because, in Donald Trump's size,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: he was the true reason for the song's runaway success.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: That irked Mack. It was his song, his art, It
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: was his idea to take an uplifting melody from Soufion
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Stevens slow and dreamy song Vesuvius im bended into the
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: irrepressible hook of an up tempo party track. And then
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: something happened, something that irked Mac even more. Within a
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: few years, Trump was no longer simply a metaphor for
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: filthy rich ballers. He began publicly doubting the citizenship of
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: President Barack Obama. He demanded to see Obama's birth certificate
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: like there was some grand secret known only to him
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: that he was about to expose. In reality, Trump was
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: exposing himself as a mouthpiece for bullshit. And the fucked
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: up thing was that other people were actually listening to this.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Mac didn't fuck with bullshit. Mac didn't fuck with Bertha
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: radicals either, and he didn't fuck with someone who didn't
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: fuck with Obama. And in two thousand and thirty, when
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Mac was named Man of the Year by Complex magazine,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: he used the platform to distance himself from any unnecessary
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: association with Donald Trump. Quote I have a fucking song
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: with this dude's name, Max said during the interview. Quote
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: and now he's just being such a fucking douchebag. Complex
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: smelled a beef for the ages. They made sure they
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: tagged Trump on Twitter when spreading the word about the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: article in Max Shit Talk. Trump didn't way long to respond,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: of course, he didn't. Little at mac Miller, you illegally
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: use my name for your song, Donald Trump, which now
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: has over seventy five million hits. Trump tweeted, Little at
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: mac Miller, I'm now going to teach you a big
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: boy lesson about lawsuits and finance, you ungrateful dog. At first,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Mac panicked, thinking about a man with seemingly unlimited resources
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: and a burgeoning army of online trolls coming after him,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: But then he looked at it from another angle. He
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: must have done something right. Pass off a guy is
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: famous and devisive ast Donald fucking Trump, a guy who
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: now had beef with two people, and two people only,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama and Mac Miller, and aroundabout kind of way.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Mac Miller knew that he had finally arrived. We'll be
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: right back after this word word word, May seventeenth, twenty eighteen,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: one am, Los Angeles. The Mercedes g wagon rounded a corner.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Mac Miller clung tight to the steering wheel. He tried
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: to focus, but focusing was hard because Mack was drunk.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: He knew this was a bad idea, getting behind the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: wheel and driving himself home. Even worse, some friends were
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: in the ride with him, but his place was super close,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: just around the corner. Not the corner that just got
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: hugged by the rooms of his white gas another corner
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: up the streetaways. He squinted and tried to visualize it.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: LA's neon fought back, and then something told him the floor,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: a voice, a thought, a memory. Was it someone in
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the car or something in the air, something in his head.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: He didn't know. He wasn't sure where the instruction came from,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: but it is an ebriated condition, reeling from the state
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: of the world, in the state of his life. The
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: simple instruction made sense. Step on it, full speed ahead,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: walking now. Maybe it was the alcohol talking, or maybe
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the voice just gave him confidence. Whatever, it was he
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: did what the voice said. Petal meat Metal was Mac okay,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: nah man, He was pretty fucking far from okay. The
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: whole world was upside down. Donald Trump was now unbelievably
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the leader of the free world, and mac knew he'd
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: be eternally embarrassed to be associated with this guy. Not
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: that he hadn't tried to warn the American people. Quote
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: just please don't elect this motherfucker man, he tweeted all
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the way back in twenty fifteen. He even appeared on
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Comedy Central's The Nightly Showed to deliver a no holds
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: barred SmackDown against New York's most infamous billionaire, a SmackDown
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: that opened with the line, I only have one thing
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: to say. I fucking hate you Donald Trump. And though
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Trump got mac Miller's blood pressure up, it was Ariana
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Grande who had stolen his heart and then left it
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: bleeding on the side of the road. The love of
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Max's life, the great stabilizing force. She was gone. And
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: if the photos of matching tattoos she in her rebound
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: boy toy Pete Davidson posted on Instagram, or any indication
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: she was never coming back, And if some online rumors
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: were to be believed. Pete Davidson was pouring salt on
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: the open wound by texting explicit photos of Ariana to Mac,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: and that would be enough to drive anyone off the road.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Mack knew he had so many reasons to feel better
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: than this. Creatively and professionally, he was on the right track.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Just a few years earlier, he'd been reborn again with
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: a ten million dollar deal with Warner Brothers. His major
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: label debut, good Am recaptured the playfulness of his earlier music,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: but filtered it through a more mature lens. Good Am
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: entered the charts at number four. Than The reviews were positive.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Even Pitchfork got behind it. Max's newfound momentum continued with
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: The Full Detox at the guesthouse of Rick Rubin, the
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: legendary record producer with an equally legendary beard and zen
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: outlook on life. Mac followed that with another resounding critical
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: and commercial success, a twenty sixteen album, The Divine Feminine.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: In a tour where he stayed clean and sober for months,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Max's new album, Swimming was going to be his best yet.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: He could feel it. It was a hip hop record,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: a soul record, a singer songwriter record. It was all
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: of Mac rolled up into one. Mack was going full
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: John Lennon, and he made it with the help of
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: friends including Snoop Dogg, Thundercat, j Cole, John Bryan, and
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: so many others. But even better than and all this
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: success was the acceptance of his peers, and not just
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: any peer, but the pier the Goatjova. Motherfucking jay Z
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: actually gave Mac Miller a shout out on Twitter tonight,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: though none of that mattered. Tonight. Behind the wheel of
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: his g wagon, Mac wasn't sure what was coming over him. Grief, regret,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: drunken waves of nausea. He sunk his foot deeper into
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the floor and the car roared to life. It picked
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: up speed fast. The boulevard rushed past the window, one
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: blurred memory after another. The engine hummed. Maack's mind raced
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: ariana Trump jay Z. He kept his foot planted. The
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: rush was reversed, intoxicating, It almost made him feel sober,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: And then it came at him. He couldn't say it
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: came out of nowhere, because it was there all along.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: It just got closer and closer with unprecedented speed. Until
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: it was right in front of him, right on top
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: of them, and then the car jumped the curb and
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: crashed head on into a telephone pole. The front end crumpled,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the airbags deployed. Max's head was tossed like a rag doll,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: and the telephone pole cracked and split. The g wagon
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: sounded like it was frying under the hood. Mac opened
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the driver's door and stumbled out onto the sidewalk. He
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: didn't even think about what he did next. There was
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: a break in a nearby fence. He slipped through it
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: off into the night, and the g wagon smoldered behind him.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: He found his way back to his house on foot,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: where hours later LAPD knocked on the door, put him
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: in cuffs and charged him with driving under the influence
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: and got hit and run. He posted bail the next day,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: fifteen grand, and then he went back to work. Swimming
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: was nearly finished, but for many a Max entourage, things
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: were far from business as usual. Max longtime toward DJ
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: clockwork gast him point blank. What happened? What happened with
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: the accident? Mac thought about it for a minute, thought
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: back to that feeling he got that night, the feeling
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: that came over him. The voice told him to step
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: on it. Do you ever feel invincible? Mac asked, clockwork,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: I just felt invincible. In August of twenty eighteen, Mac
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Miller dropped Swimming, his fifth studio album and third for
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Warner Brothers. It was released on the heels of the
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: music video for Self Care, the one on which he
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: carves Memento Mori into the ceiling of a coffin before
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: dramatically breaking out and transcending death. The album was universally
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: hailed as his best yet. Critics called it patient, dreamy,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: air tight, and irresistible. It entered the Billboard two hundred
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: at number three, behind new albums by Travis Scott and Drake.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: It was easy to assume that Mac was processing his
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: life through his art. It had been three months since
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: his breakup with Ariana Grande and his drunken car crash
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: in la But despite the brave face he wore on
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the record, in reality, Max's trauma wasn't resolved. He was
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: still relying on bad habits to get him through the night.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: One month later, on the evening of September fourth, Swimming
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: was still on the charts. It was around eleven pm.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Mac typed a message into his phone. Did you hear
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: backed about Addie? He waited impatiently for a response. Finally
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: it came, Nah, I couldn't find any shit. He typed
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: some more. All good, you don't have a lean perks.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: The response came quickly this time We've got some dial
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: It did toos, but that's about it. I could get
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: yellows and blues. Though Mac got excited. He typed again
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: blues as far as perks, when can you get him?
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Mac watched the ellipses and the chap Bubble Pul says.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: His dealer composed his response, probably in an hour or two,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Cameron Pettit didn't have exactly what mac Miller was looking for.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: What he had was close enough oxy xanax cocaine. Mac
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: texted his address and waited and waited. After nearly two hours,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: he was tired of waiting. He was now around one
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: in the morning. Mac composed another text message, this one
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: to another dealer, Slash Madam, the one who introduced into
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Petit in the first place. Cam is supposed to be
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: pulling up and he ain't answering. Mac got her attention
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: quick She took his order five oxies, ten out of
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: five Norco pills and two grams of coke. She told
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Mac the coke was on the house if he booked
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: a girl too deal. Mac waited some more, this time
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: for a sex worker to show up in the studio
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: with the shit, but before she did, Pettitt finally responded.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: He apologized he got sidetracked. He arrived at Mac's studio
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: around two thirty that morning, which is around the same
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: time that the sex worker also showed up. There were
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: worse things than a redundant drug delivery, but one of
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: those two drug deliveries was not like the other. Two
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: days later, on the morning of September seventh, Max's assistant
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: found Mac on his bed. His skin was turning blue,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: liquid was oozing from his mouth. The assistant called nine
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to one one and tried to revive Mac with CPR,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: but it was too late. Some of the drugs delivered
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: to mac Miller a few nights earlier did not come
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: as advertised. The oxy Coton pills, the blues or thirties
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: aka generic thirty milligram pills that he bought off Cameron
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Pettit were actually counterfeit. Cops found those pills, along with
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: legit oxy pills, adderall norco xanax and cocaine, and max
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: cot Hanging in his closet. The counterfeit OxyS tested positive
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: for a lethal dose of fentanyl. Judging by the paraphernalia
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: they also found on site, Mac had crushed up and
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: snorted the fentanyl, completely unaware of what he was taking.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: He died of an accidental overdose due to the mixed
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: drug toxicity in his system fentanyl, cocaine, and alcohol. Following
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: his death, streams of Max music jumped a wopping nine
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: hundred and seventy percent. Swimming re entered the Billboard Top ten,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: and hit number one on Apple Music Streaming Chair. His
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: final album, Circles, was released posthumously in January of twenty twenty,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: further cementing the laid back hybrid style that had come
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: to define his music. It also moved one hundred and
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: sixty four thousand album equivalent units in its first week,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Max's biggest sales week ever. Mac Miller had finally punched
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: his way through the rejection. The only injustice was that
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: he wasn't alive to enjoy it. There was some justice
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: in the world. Two men who were involved in the
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: sale of the fentanyl, and mac Miller received prison sentences.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Ryan Revis, who supplied the bogus pills to Cameron Pettit,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: was sentenced to just under eleven years in prison. Revs,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: in turn at the pills from a guy named Stephen Walter,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: who is now doing just over seventeen years for his part.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Cameron Pettit meanwhile was charged with distribution of the controlled substance,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: which comes with a twenty year maximum prison sentence. As
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: of this episode, the case against Pettit is still pending,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: but putting drug dealers behind bars wasn't the only justice
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: carried out in the name of macmiller. On January nineteenth,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, Donald Trump took one last walk across
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: the White House lawn and climbed aboard the Marine I
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: helicopter and flew away. Donald Trump's last day as president
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: of the United States was the very same day on
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: which macmillan would have celebrated this twenty ninth birthday. I'm
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Jake Brennan in this this Disgraceland.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: you for supporting the show.
• 33:34
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• 33:37
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• 33:40
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• 34:01
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• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Rock and Roller. He's a bad don man.