Swimming in Circles

By: Brittany Beers

Malcolm James McCormick better known as Mac Miller born January 19, 1992 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He loved his city and represented it whenever he had a chance. He was born to Karen Meyers who was a photographer and Mark McCormick who was an architect. Mac graduated from Allderdice High School in 2010.

Mac began rapping at just 14 years old and released his first mix tape in 2007. Then just a few short years later in 2010, he signed to Rostrum Records, who he released his breakthrough mix tapes K.I.D.S (2010) and Best Day Ever 2011 with. In 2013 he was given a key to Pittsburgh and it was deemed Mac Miller Day.

After releasing two studio albums with Rostrum Records he left and signed to Warner Bros. Records in 2014. Mac released four albums with the label including; GO:OD AM (2015), The Devine Feminine (2016) , Swimming (2018) and the posthumously released album Circles (2020). He also served as a record producer for other artists under the pseudonym Larry Fisherman.

While Malcolm had a successful music career he had his struggles with substance abuse. He often referenced this often in his lyrics. He often spoke openly about his use of drugs. Along with the drug use he also was arrested in May of 2018 on charges of driving under the influence and hit and run. He hit a utility pole and fled the scene with two passengers. He was later taken into custody and released on $15,000 bail. In August 2018 he was charged with two counts of driving under the influence for the incident, but when he died before the arraignment the charges were dropped.

On September 7th, 2018 Malcolm was found unresponsive in his studio city home by his assistant. He was pronounced dead at his home at 11:51 am. He died from an accidental drug overdose due to a mixed drug toxicity of Fentanyl, Cocaine and Alcohol. He was buried in hometown in a Jewish funeral.

On the day he died he was scheduled for a video shoot and was set to head out on tour the following month for his Swimming Tour. A vigil was held in his memory in Pittsburgh’s Blue Slide Park and continues to be a place of remembrance to this day. A month later a tribute concert was held in LA with many of his friends and collaborators performing. Proceeds benefited the newly established Mac Miller Circles Fund. By January 2019 $700,000 was raised. In May of 2019 it was renamed The Mac Miller Fund and in which they issued their first grants. The fund aims to support youth arts and community building programs in his memory.

Mac Miller was a one of a kind person with an incredible unmatchable talent. Nobody could or should doubt that. While he struggled with addiction know there are resources out there to help you get clean and sober.

If you or anyone you know struggles with addiction or needs help with this please reach out. There are many hotlines and places you or your loved ones can call in your area that can help as well. I've linked a few websites and a few numbers down below to hopefully help as well including Mac's foundation.

The Mac Miller Fund: https://pittsburghfoundation.org/macmiller

NATIONAL DRUG HOTLINE: 1-844-289-0879

NATIONAL SUICIDE HOTLINE: (800)273-8255

https://www.hftd.org/find-help

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention - afsp.org

Crisis Text Line - crisistextline.org

Mental Health America - mentalhealthamerica.net

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - suicidepreventionlifeline.org

The Trevor Project LGBT Lifeline - thetrevorproject.org

Warmlines - warmline.org

I leave you with one of my favorite quotes by Mac Miller himself:

“The number one reason why people give up so fast is because they tend to look at how far they still have to go, instead of how far they’ve gotten.” – Mac Miller