Mac Miller appears on the latest installment of NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concert.” Check it out below. For the occasion, he invited along Thundercat to cameo on Swimming track “What's the Use?” He also played “Small Worlds” and “2009” from the record—their live debuts—enlisting a string section to join his live band. Mac Miller and Thundercat head out on the Swimming tour this fall, with assistance from Atlanta rapper J.I.D. Find tickets here. Check out Pitchfork’s 2016 Icebreaker interview with Mac Miller.<doc-sep>It would’ve been difficult for Mac Miller to make a rosier album than his 2016 release “The Divine Feminine,” the unabashedly romantic collection of songs he recorded in the midst of his budding relationship with pop star Ariana Grande. “Swimming,” his “Divine Feminine” follow-up album that dropped Friday, still has elements of the funk-and-soul sunshine Miller baked in on his previous release. But considering how Miller’s life has changed in the past few years, it was bound to be a darker album. His two-year relationship with Grande, which thrust Miller into the paparazzi’s gaze with an intensity he hadn’t experienced before, ended in May. Shortly after, Miller was reportedly arrested for a DUI-related car crash, and Grande quickly got engaged to comedian Pete Davidson, two events that invited even more speculation into Miller’s life. Yet the 26-year-old rapper is taking things in stride, if his “Swimming” lyrics are any indication. And while the album is more contemplative than his previous release, “Swimming” really does sound like the work of a young person working through his issues rather than wallowing in them. Between his breakup and his acknowledged struggles with alcohol abuse, Miller faces his demons at various points on “Swimming,” and while the album isn’t a tell-all, there’s more that fans can learn about Miller from (almost) every song on his new release. Song: "Come Back To Earth" Choice lyric: “In my own way, I feel like living some alternate reality / And I was drowning, but now I'm swimming through stressful waters to relief.” Decoded: The album's opening track expands on the album title's "Swimming" metaphor, setting up a collection of songs about how Miller navigated turbulent waters and came out afloat. Song: "What’s The Use" Choice lyrics: “I'm so above and beyond you take drugs to make it up / Way up where we on, space shuttle, Elon / Time we don't waste much, (expletive) when we wake up / Then have her sing just like Celine Dion.” “Never superficial, you don't know it when it hit you / Get a little sentimental when I'm off the juice.” Decoded: The first lyric seems like a passing reference to Celine Dion, except that Ariana Grande frequently impersonates the Canadian pop icon's vocals, as seen on her "SNL" and "Tonight Show" appearances. This isn't exactly shade as much as it is an oddly placed link to his ex. As for the second line, Miller seems to be referencing his struggles with alcohol, mentioning his heightened emotions when he's not drinking. Song: "Perfecto" Choice lyric: “Bare feet, runnin' late, her car started / Even though the only thing that she driving a hard bargain / More important is I'm kinda sorta out the door but / She put me back together when I'm out of order.” Decoded: Whether Miller is talking about a past or present relationship isn't completely clear here. But if he is talking in past tense, he could very well be referring to Grande, who alluded to helping Miller overcome his addictions after their breakup. Song: "Self Care" Decoded: “I know that feelin' like it's in my family tree, yeah / That Mercedes drove me crazy, I was speedin' / Somebody save me from myself, yeah.” Decoded: Released as an early single from "Swimming," "Self Care" was seen as Miller's chronicle of his mental recovery from his difficult stretch of time. While he only vaguely alludes to his breakup in the song, he's more direct in his acknowledgment of his car crash, considering the vehicle involved was reportedly a Mercedes. Song: "Wings" Choice lyric: “Love so much that my heart get broke / I don't really know how the normal (expletive) go.” Decoded: Miller is straightforward here about his relationship struggles, blaming the old adage of "loving too much" for his challenges. Song: "Dunno" Choice lyric: “You was coughin' when you hit my weed / But I've never seen you feel that free / So cute, you wanna be like me / Wouldn't you rather get along? Wouldn't you rather get along?” “Well I was busy when you hit my phone / But you miss me, tell me come back home, yeah / You don't really like to sleep alone / But I'm takin' too long, I'm always takin' too long.” “I wanna see them lips, kiss 'em ear to ear / I wanna hear your song, ooh, I wanna feel just how you feel / Touch it one more time so I know you're real / We could spin that wheel, wouldn't you rather get along?” Decoded: Of all the songs on "Swimming," this track seems uniquely directed at Grande. There's a chance it's a gloomy ode to another woman, but there's a wistfulness that makes it seem as if Miller is rapping about love lost as he wonders why he and his counterpart can't just get along and – most tellingly – seems to reminisce about seeing an ex again after some time apart. Song: "Jet Fuel" Choice lyric: “Everybody wanna jump in but I'm old school, lone wolf, take 'em off solo / I don't need nobody, I don't need to be nobody / I'm just doing my thing, kick it at the crib I don't see nobody.” Decoded: Miller says it himself here – he's a lone wolf, capable of thriving alone, a common stance to adopt after a breakup. Song: "2009" Choice lyric: “Now every day I wake up and breathe / I don’t have it all but that’s all right with me." Decoded: If there's a mission statement to "Swimming," it could very well be this lyric, about how Miller, after all his trials, is just happy to be alive and is taking his struggles in stride.<doc-sep>
It’s been a minute since Mac Miller came on the scene with 2011’s frat-rap single, “Donald Trump.” And in those intervening years, the MC-producer lost his high-pitched, Pittsburgh-accented voice and lower case snark, and moved to the duskily epic tones of “Watching Movies with the Sound Off” (2013) with its psych-stoned screeds and slurry voices, before winding up at 2016’s “The Divine Feminine.” With Miller woozily croon-rapping his message of love, and then-paramour Ariana Grande on its receiving end, “The Divine Feminine” was his “I Want You” on the Marvin Gaye meter — a tenderly clear-headed look at old-fashioned romance accompanied by elements of poignant, spare, synth-phonic soul within its crevices. Keeping with that Gaye-scale, “Swimming,” is Miller’s “Here, My Dear,” an odd, languid, post-break-up album (farewell, Ariana) that expresses its feelings in soulful gulps and mumbles. Guided by Miller’s slow, minimalist, spacey soundscapes, “Swimming” is only occasionally punctuated by the percolating bass lines (for instance: “What’s The Use”), or overt hip-hop rhythmic underpinnings of his past, and often comes across as dreamily jazzy as Frank Ocean’s floating “Channel Orange.” What Miller’s fifth solo album has at its ready is a Zen-like calm when it comes to its lyrics, a mix of the smartly nihilistic, the pragmatically cheerful and a glad-to-be-unhappy lyrical signature that’s irresistible in its sourness. “Every day I wake up and breathe / I don’t have it all, but that’s all right with me,” Miller croon-cackles on “2009,” while accompanied by lush, sparse keyboards and dry skin finger snaps. Who sings about being just OK at a time when the extremes of money, fame, racism and misogyny are de rigueur within hip-hop’s framework? Mac Miller does, and he makes a commonplace emotional reaction as “eh” sound utterly crucial. Continuing along in sing-song-rap-moan, Miller touches upon affairs of the heart with the pained, but weirdly cocksure, “Hurt Feelings,” and its “you don’t know what you’re missing” refrain. The eternal emptiness within is given soft, swift dispatch on “Come Back to Earth” where one can hear a certain fragility and frankness to Miller when he sings, “Sunshine don’t feel right… I’ll do anything for a way out.” It’s uneasy and discomforting. Yet, on the humming “Self Care,” co-written by Dev Hynes of Blood Orange, Miller’s repetitious run at the phrase “Hell yeah, we gonna be all right” seems to be a self-proclamation of survival by any psychic means necessary. “I got all the time in the world.” Referencing a life once filled with drug-draining ups-and-down, “Come Back to Earth” lays out the album’s basic principle in Hemingway-like severity when he says, “I was drowning, now I’m swimming.” While the drone of “So It Goes,” offers but one message. It’s in Miller’s melodious baritone, stark mantra flow that “Swimming” is most effective — a simple, stately, poetic autobiography. Maybe for a guy healing from a busted two-year relationship, being OK is alright.