Progression. That’s a good place to start in 2010. I did a lot of ‘progressing’ leading into ’10. I’ll give a lot of credit to the college experience (not so much the college itself) for the shape and calcification of my being. Since ’10 – minor progressions, but the details have been important. More fine tuning of who I should be. But before we get too into 2010, I need to talk about 2008 (a MAJOR progression the likes of a King Crimson album) because without 2008, there is no 2010, and certainly no 2020.
[So, briefly, here it goes.]
As a current 33 year old in 2020, rap music takes up a pretty calculated 93% of my musical intake. In 2008, not so much. More like weird metal, emo pop-punk – regular 20-year old white boy stuff. But I WAS 1 year into being a ‘urban music’ radio DJ (What? Why? How?) and my crash course had been hitting quite the peak. Classics and hot-off-the-stove EmCees were covered but anything in between – was very much all or nothing.
“Yo, you see the new Gucci tape dropped?”
“Wait, who? Gucci? Is there a new album out? I didn’t know it was getting released?”
“C’mon. You didn’t see the new mixtape drop on Nahright?”
And I did. The internet is a deep ocean of untapped resources, until you start “tap, tap, tapping it in”. Gucci’s 36 mixtapes in 6 months were something to behold, but to me was pretty flat – all temporary ear candy but nothing that held water. I was 14 pages in – searching Nahright.com, 2DopeBoyz – and felt I was now in a 400 level classroom. And then came a banger – Wale ‘A Mixtape About Nothing’.
I was smitten. The tape basically Batman punched the life back into me and I considered uncovering this gem, a passing grade into rap graduation. Hours were now spent uncovering quality tapes and collabs that I could talk about to whomever who keep listening to me. In ’09 I took over the reins on the Rap Radio airwaves. My musical trajectory was skyrocketing. Rap music should have been my major.
Internet. Internet. Blog Site. Search. Blog Site. Search. Download. Listen. Share. Refresh. Internet. College is in the rear view. Career is in a holding pattern. Retail for the time being. New music is what’s up.
“When you’re young, not much matters.”
“When you find something that you care about, then that’s all you got.”
Is this from that movie…?
“When you go to sleep at night, you dream of *music* “
KICKIN’ INCREDIBLY DOPE SHIT (K.I.D.S.)
A white 18-year old kid from Pittsburgh comes out with a ‘KIDS’ movie sample and then just. Goes. In. Like, bangers from the gun. Heavily KIDS influenced, heavily sampling dope beats (Lord Finesse took a little offense to that, but we’re past it), but that’s what a mixtape is about! Get your ears and eyes focused. Someone is looking to get on the map.
Progression. It’s what got me here so far, but it’s also what this kid, Mac Miller, was after. Mac put out this album specifically to show people what he could do with his words. Not to say that he had A LOT to say, but he wanted to talk, and tell people about what he knew (not making up a persona just to sell a rap to the streets). Drugs, drinking, ladies, and having fun. “Kool-aid and Frozen Pizza” ain’t trynna be anything that it’s not.
Mac Miller was a fun ass High School graduate putting out fun-ass rap tunes for people to smile to. Whether a banger or a smooth ride, I found a good time in this tape from beginning to end. It was different, definitely. Not to say ground-breaking, but it’s hard for me to put a doppelganger to his flow. I remember someone trying to tell me it seemed like he emulated Drake’s delivery – slow yet catchy. But something about Drake always has me thinking he didn’t really ‘flow’ in any way, and just spoke to you ‘in a rhythm (a rhythm I cannot actually describe)’. Mac had a delivery, a great one. And it was simple, yet smart. He just really understood who was listening, and who he wanted to get across to. I assumed as a 23 year old retails associate, I was smack in the middle of that venn diagram.
I’m a sucker for a ‘Boom Bap’ sound (just say it enough and you’ll get it) and even though Mac isn’t a definition of the style, there’s a lot of that east coast flare in there (especially with the samples he chose – definite *eye emoji*). I also had a pretty intimate experience with the movie laced into this mixtape. I wrote an 8 page final paper on the movie (more specifically, the last line of the movie, which he so happens to use on the last track, with tunes of Elliot Smith slowly fading out to close up shop on the tape). So you have to believe that my intrigue and HOPE for this tape from the get go was at a 17 out of 10.
“Get ‘Em Up” had me nodding straight out the gate. Mac, if he was trying to showcase some wordflow talent, had me at least glued to see if this would get better with this track. By now I’m cranking the volume up a few notches and thinking I might have found something. Again, this isn’t groundbreaking, but no 18-year old should be (SHOULD BE). But Mac didn’t need to deliver complex lyrical stanzas in and out of classic Pete Rock beats to make an impact. I’m on my feet. I want to hear more.
And then we transition to “Nikes on My Feet” and, you see what I did there? This was as tasty of a track as you could have hoped for. Not knowing anything was a good way to go into this, because the unexpectedness of a Nas sample on this Pittsburgh kid’s mixtape was a treat. And it could have been a more ‘World Renown’ tune – including the all-familiar bass line and chorus -- but he chose a piece within “The World is Yours” and went in, to further push the “this is what I know, and this is what I’m gonna rap about” bit. “I don’t know about Nas’ life in Queensbridge, but I know about these Nikes on my feet” is what I imagine he said while thinking up this song. And if you can’t tell I was sold by now, well then, I’ve wasted a thousand words on you.
“Cream cheese and a bagel. Have a glass of milk and an Eggo. Rocking PJs and no shirt. I smoke weed, eat yogurt.”
Progression, right? There was a time where “The Spins” would have intrigued me because of the Empire of the Sun portion – ala Gorillaz with Del tha Funky Homosapien. But now I’m sitting thinking, man what a compliment they are to Mac Miller. He’s still the star of the track and in 2010, on the festival circuit, this made the KIDS bump, bump, bump. Even walking down the street 3 weeks ago, I was re-listening to the tape and couldn’t keep from trotting, singing, and just enjoying myself. Banger. In 2010, this is what I NEEDED. I wanted a song that just got my blood racing and FUCK did this song do it. Being that Mac might not have been heralded by the rap world right away, a track like this made sure he at least meshed between a few crowds, and I’d say the music festival demographic was probably an ideal spot for him. That’s where I found myself as well. At least, as a 23 year old. Because, again, we are still progressing.
We move into “Paper Route” and “Good Evening” and we’ve moved away from booming and banging, and now we are cruising. We got the radio on, or we got the headphones in, and you got your head nodding along. BOP BOP BOP. Going back to Mac’s intention for this tape, I feel like these tracks are in the realm of Mac puppeteering his way along, showing the world how he could move swiftly and intelligently – yet simply and endearingly – through a track.
For anyone who ever blog, probably heard my name
Hip-Hop's underdog, you wanna win the game
I'm sick of hearin' how music change never be the same
And these dudes who think they everything and never pick a lane
Call yourself a vet, but haven't won a single game
Mad, every girl got my name imprinted in her brain
Boy, I'm a beast, match the style in bars
Find me smokin' weed where the wild things are
For anyone who doubted he’d be able to cut it on the rap scene, I’d say that verse was a slight flex, in retrospect.
As much as “The Spins” was able to bring thousands of folks off their grass stained tight jeans and onto their feet during a July summer on Governor’s island (I saw it happen in person) – “Knock, Knock” was the jam of the album. This was the tune that made Mac be able to stand tall and say “This tape was worth it.” This followed me through many-a-car ride, too many drunken after parties (not at hotel lobbies – but more so at post-collegiate apartments with unfortunate furniture choices), and just being the soundtrack to my walks through the Manhattan summer. I have a soft spot for over the top “epic” sounding choruses that you can blast on better than average speakers, and this fit the bill. It’s hard for me to find a song that defined “Fun” for me more, in 2010, than this song did.
It’s hard to imagine 2010 without this entering my life. Because it was fun. So very fun. And it brings great thoughts just writing about listening to this album back then. Great weekends, and epic tabletops, and the content we were able to create! Even if most of it only lives in our heads, it was worth it].
And then it ends, like it began. “Jesus Christ, What happened?”. The movie ‘Kids’ brings us back and we fade out. Of course, I would “bring it back” many a time in that day. It became a fixture on the playlists, a constant on the headphones. I even slipped a few songs on the retail store speakers.
But we all PROGRESS. We all want more eventually. And do I mean more, like “that wasn’t good enough – give me more!”? No. I mean. We want more, like, I’m changing, and so is everything around me, what do you offer me now? A better job? More money? More substance from the ones you spend your time with? And with that, you also tend to want more from your music.
So ‘K.I.D.S.’, even though I have thrown it on the que recently and been able to jam along, I can’t keep it on the podium that it was prominently placed on in 2010. For what it represents, it will forever be held high, but it won’t be the same as the first experience and I don’t think that was ever the plan. Do tracks still SLAP, sure, but they weren’t meant to be ‘timeless’. It was meant to live in the moment and do what it needed to do. Mac made it known this was a proving point for him. This tape was meant to show he belonged.
And so as we all need to do, we PROGRESSED –
Watching movies with the Sound Off
You can say what you want about those albums that proceeded, but you can’t say Mac Miller was stagnant.
“Yo, I listened to them and they just weren’t what I expected.”
“Well what did you expect”
“Yeah, but I wanted it – well – again.”
‘K.I.D.S.’ was never meant to sustain, and Mac moved on from it like he should have. He had more to prove. Could he have continued to make music for the festival crowd? Sure? Would he have been successful? Probably. But even though I don’t even pretend to know him as a person – it’s obviously not what he intended to do. Because even though the albums I mentioned above may not have caught the listeners’ attention like ‘K.I.D.S.’ did, you could see the progression that Mac was going through.
[Can we jump to 2018? Good.]
Even though you may have found your footing, there are always ways to improve your steps. At this point it isn’t major adjustment after major adjustment, but more like “Hey, those shoes didn’t work because of the minor shape difference in the heel to toe ratio, maybe these slightly less aggressive ones will be better” (IYKYK). Mac Miller put out ‘Swimming’ in ’18 and to say it’s his best work is an understatement, but to also say that “This is a throwback to his most comparable work to date, ‘K.I.D.S.’“ would be a catastrophic failure in comparison. Through the steps he took in with minor adjustments on his other studio albums, Mac developed a sound that was unlike anything that was produced on ‘K.I.D.S.’, BUT, without ‘K.I.D.S.’, ‘Swimming’ never exists. Weird how that works.
I used to rock epic rap anthems like it was them or nothing. I needed to hit be hit hard or it wasn’t hitting enough. But I learned that there was a different way to be ‘touched’ by hip hop. I learned, what I define as ‘asymmetric’ beats – where a song may not have a chorus, or a looped sample, or anything typical of a conventional or traditional track. My ears were genuinely intrigued by the angles that existed within the songs, and I started to see the beauty of them. I wanted rappers who could also take a rap track, and put a live band to it – Let’s hear some live ivory tickling under them verses, huh!? – OR maybe have a rapper croon a little bit? Why not. Why they always gotta be so hard? Lets get sensitive (but please – no Drake).
So ‘Swimming’ did that – all of it. We got Mac pouring his heart out. Where ‘K.I.D.S.’ had bangers and catchy choruses and classic samples – ‘Swimming’ had live bass (Thundercat! Woot!), off-kiltered bars, singing and swaying, and stuff I didn’t imagine Mac had in him. But they were as visible on this album as the tattoos on his sleeve. I mean, I’m FULL SEND on The Foreign Exchange, Tyler The Creator, Black Milk, yadda yadda yadda, and Mac is now RIGHT THERE in the conversation.
SIRS AND MADAMES WE HAVE PROGRESSED!
Mac and I didn’t have tickets on the same trolly train of progression, but we both got here. Maybe he saw it coming -- I definitely didn’t plan this Musical fandom path for myself. Maybe Flying Lotus had something to do with it?
I think it has a lot to do with getting from the prove yourself phase to the phase you actually want to be in. We all have to do it at some point. We all have to be in a spot that isn’t exactly where we’d like to be – but without it we can’t get to where we WANT to be. The problem is, how to convince others that this is the right way to go. Not to say “Everyone, please follow me – this is the right AND ONLY way this will work”, but more like “Hi everyone, this is the right way for me, can you please join in helping me proceed and giving me the confidence to move onto the next chapter of this progression.” To be honest I wasn’t following along with him fully – a mix of not understanding and not believing he would get there. I feel like I made it through to where I wanted to be a little sooner than Mac did – but when “Swimming’ came out – I knew we both made it. Or you could assume we both made it. I assumed we both made it.
But then it was over. In September of 2018, Mac passed away. And it fucking sucked. As happy and fulfilling as his music made us – made ME – feel, it’s hard to believe he wasn’t anywhere close to feeling the same. Malcolm McCormick should have been with us for a long time, and because things just don’t work that way, he won’t. ‘Circles’ eventually came to us in 2020 – and recorded entirely while ‘Swimming’ was, so everyone got to witness the feelings again that they did with ‘Swimming’ and remember, unfortunately, how we won’t be able to continue to feel like this again.
Some music makes a dent in your life, and it takes a while for you to understand why. ‘K.I.D.S.’ did that for me in 2010. I was too busy to really try and figure out why my bumper got scuffed, or how to fix it. But in 2020, I know it was never meant to be fixed. My 33 year old ‘Toyota Corolla’ of a self thinks the dent looks good these days. Why try and progress through that.
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