Speaking with Billboard Senior Editor Erika Ramierz on the Podcast The Juice, Mac Miller offered up an explanation of his “I did it all without a Drake feature” line on his recent Faces mixtape.
“I’m still playing it out the same speakers,” he raps on “Here We Go,” “I did it all without a Drake feature!”
Asked about the lyric, Mac joked he “invited [Drake] to [his] birthday party and he didn’t come one time.”
“I’m a huge Drake fan,” he added. “It was less about the actual Drake features…At the end of the day, I by no means have done it by myself, I have great people around me at all times. It’s just dope to kind of be where I’m at and be the head of my whole thing…It’s not like a shot.”
“Even for the rappers that do get the Drake verse, that’s awesome,” he went on. “I was actually thinking this one day, sitting there thinking. Could I actually picture myself on a song with Jay Z? Would that make any sense? I would love to. Wouldn’t that be weird? Would that sound right?”
Earlier in the podcast, Mac Miller also spoke about his drug use and alluded to a possible working relationship with Rick Rubin.
Initially asked if his mother had listened to Faces yet, Mac said he thinks she has.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think so. I don’t know. There’s a lot of heavy drug references in there, so I know that bothers her.”
Asked if his drug use or the possibility of an overdose worries him, Mac Miller largely shrugged off the suggestion.
“I’m worried about these dogs right now,” he said with barking heard in the background. “I’m straight dude. We all experiment. We all go all over the place. We all learn from our things. I’m just honest. I just don’t like to hide anything. But I’m straight. I’m good…The most important thing is always realizing that the sober you is the best you. But my main drug is the studio. The past two years I just been in that room.”
“Everything’s Kosher,” he said. “I actually just got sober…No weed. I’ve been completely sober for 15 days so I can do transcendental meditation. Do you guys meditate?”
“I’m out here getting spiritual,” he said. “Rick got me meditating out here. I can’t say much more man. We’ve already said too much.”
Mac Miller Details Career Shift After Blue Slide Park
Referencing a one-star review of his debut album on Pitchfork, Mac Miller described transitioning away from the type of music he made on Blue Slide Park and being able to stand by his product in a different way.
“The other thing I want to speak on, I just thought of this, the whole direct correlation with the negative review and what happened to my life after,” he said. “I think it was less about the people—I really truly felt able to stand by that music that wouldn’t have bothered me. Like now, when Watching Movies came out, everyone didn’t give that a good review. I got bad reviews on that too. That’s it when it kind of tests you, how much do you love your music or can you stand by it? And that’s kind of what’s changed. I remember having Blue Slide Park, and I used to do this thing where I would pop a Molly before I would listen to the album before it came out. Don’t do drugs. I remember having a really bad experience with Blue Slide Park. There’s nothing wrong with that album…As long as I’m here it’s gonna be this funny thing. It’s not even bad, it’s just different. It’s a little more surfacey. That’s not what I was really going for at that point.”
