I’m sure “WILSHIRE” will be my top song this month. The groove is infectious, the rhymes are tight and clever, the storyline is fascinating. It’s also incredibly long—almost nine minutes of Tyler rapping. The title of this playlist comes from one of the earlier verses:
It's morals I really have, it's lines I could never cross
But you got somethin' that make
All them good intentions get lost
I try to keep it together, never felt this way
We spent 'bout two weeks together, only skipped one day
Tyler tweeted that the vocals for this song were recorded in one take, a fact which is both astounding and illuminative. It reads like a story; Tyler adds details and doubles back on the linearity, weaving a narrative of love and subsequent heartbreak. It seems like a situation that he’s still processing, one with complicated ethics that can only be revealed when the dust settles. Nevertheless, it’s definitively over. He interrupts himself with commentary, spoken out of time and rhyme scheme:
On God, I love that girl
I'm a sh-, I'm a bad person
Like, I'm in the wrong, I'm a bad person
I had no ill intentions, though
Shit, everybody got hurt
I got hurt
There are many speculative posts on the Internet regarding who this song is about. Tyler mentions at the end of the song that he prioritizes anonymity because people desire far too much information about his personal life, and it’s clear that this precaution is warranted. The depth of these theories is astonishing, a little horrifying even. Fame compromises privacy, dead stop. Tyler spins the tenacity with which his fans seek out hidden clues, the way they stretch for “proof,” into songwriting fodder. I’m fascinated to see what further analysis of this issue appears in his work.
Mac Miller was significantly less private—his high profile relationship (and breakup) with Ariana Grande made headlines, as did his open struggle with substance abuse and depression. He rapped about his personal life regularly, and made little effort to conceal information from his fans. That intimacy and honesty made him uniquely accessible, and his death uniquely personal. When he died in 2018, he was only twenty six.
Just before that, he was working on material that would become Circles (2020). It’s his most earnest album yet, full of soft, sad songs like “Good News” and “Complicated.” He often raps about feeling weary of everything, about wanting to die before he gets old:
Some people say they want to live forever
That's way too long, I'll just get through today
Circles was intended to be a companion piece to Swimming (2018). Critics used its release to eulogize the artist and praise his work, reaching all the way back to Blue Slide Park (2011). Mac Miller changed the hip-hop community, despite and because of his earnestness about his various struggles. After watching him repeatedly prove his resiliency against his demons, his death was a hard blow to his fans and friends.
It’s tough to listen to Circles knowing that Mac Miller didn’t live to see its release. He was constantly evolving, reinventing his sound and exploring new avenues of production and songwriting. He had so much promise, as an artist and as a person. We can only hope that the rappers he inspired keep his legacy alive.
I’ll use the appearance of Kanye on this playlist to touch on Donda (2021). The new album pales in comparison to “We Don’t Care” and his other early work. It’s hard to hold both his public image and the incredible music he’s created throughout his career up until this point. Even his middling records were sonically innovative and conceptually sound, but Donda lacks that special Kanye sauce, the bonkers rhymes and weird sounds that defined his role of trailblazer in the rap scene.
I’m stuck on the appearance of both Marilyn Manson and Da Baby on the album, the nonsensical inflammatory nature of that decision, the icky feeling that comes with that knowledge. While I’ll acknowledge that Kanye West obviously has untreated mental health issues that influence his reactionary and erratic behavior, it’s true that his actions—supporting Donald Trump throughout his presidency, suggesting that slavery was a “choice,” public beef with Taylor Swift—have massive harmful impacts on people who look up to him or are even aware of his public presence. At some point, it becomes impossible to reconcile that negative cultural influence with the positive one he’s had on music. I’m not sure where that point is, and I’m not sure I ever will.