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Mac grew up in a good neighborhood (Point Breeze in Pittsburgh) with good parents (mom a photographer, dad an architect) and good prospects-he was in a "gifted" program as a kid, taught himself many instruments, killed at basketball and lacrosse, and did his freshman and sophomore years in prep school. Then I had two weeks with Nat Shermans, like, 'Look at me, I'm classy!' Been Spirits since." Kids weren't allowed to stay at my house because I was obviously trouble. "Being an 8-year-old trying to get other 8-year-olds to smoke is not tight. This is one of the ways Mac catalogs his life-cigarettes smoked. I knew from back then, he's the best." A puckish smirk creeps across his face as he finishes the thought: "At what he does-he can't do what I do."Īs Mac moves to the parking lot for a smoke, the Shangri-Las trill over the café speakers: "They said he came from the wrong side of town/They told me he was bad but I knew he was sad/That's why I fell for the leader of the pack." He sets his coffee on a post and asks, "You know what's crazy?" He lifts his T-shirt to expose a newly shorn chest and, more to the point, a blocky image of an eagle: "The American Spirit logo!" He'll burn through about a pack's worth of the brand's menthol variety during our two hours. "When Kendrick and I first collaborated he hit me and said, 'Thanks for the opportunity.' That's when he opened for me on tour.
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Paak, Ty Dolla $ign, and CeeLo Green jazz heads like pianist Robert Glasper and trumpeter Keyon Harrold ("They put so much sauce on it," Mac says) Stones Throw boogie king Dam-Funk (listen for the keytar on "Soulmate") Brainfeeder bass god and bona fide "homie" Thundercat ("We've made 2,000 songs together") and old friend Kendrick Lamar, who popped into the studio after his January appearance on Jimmy Fallon. He made The Divine Feminine back east, but with a cross-continental cast: anything-goes vocalists like Anderson. Mac's proclivity for low-pretension high-mindedness isn't surprising considering the company he keeps. On recent single "We," which plays more like a psychedelic neo-soul jam than anything resembling contemporary rap, he quips, "Change is more than pennies laying on the floor inside the well." It's sorta cheesy and kinda brilliant, like all folksy wisdom worth repeating. Plainspoken philosophical bon mots just roll off Mac’s tongue these days. I'm trying to cuddle the world after sex, not keep the Uber running and dip out." The more you make love to it and the less you try to fuck it, the better it all becomes for you. Treating the world how you're supposed to treat a female is awesome. I'd hate to be cliché, like, 'I looove the universe, maaan,'" he says in a hippie drawl. " The Divine Feminine, to me, is the universe. The title of his latest LP, he explains, references an energy coursing through the cosmos. After years of being a notorious studio rat-a workaholic shut-in who walled himself off with drink, weed, coke, lean, and other intoxicants-followed by a spell of Rick Rubin-assisted self-improvement that dominated the press cycle for 2015's GO:OD AM album, Mac is looking outward. It's probably a bit of everything.īut “the outdoors, man” is at the center of it all. Or, yes, it may have something to do with his budding relationship with Ariana Grande.
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Or that his new album, The Divine Feminine, out September 16 via Warner Bros., finds him singing (singing!) songs about love (love!). Or that he's moving back from New York to Los Angeles, where the Pittsburgh native musically came of age four years ago. Or it may be what the coffee replaced-Mac is 61 days clean and sober (he calls espresso his "new DOC," or drug of choice). His order, for "Malcolm" (last name McCormick), called for eight shots over ice. He yells this last part like Chevy Chase in character as Clark Griswold, so it could be the espresso talking. People are like, 'What do you have to do today?' I'm like, 'Get outta the house and into the car! It's gonna be a great day!'" Lately, I've been running around like a chicken with his head cut off, just loving being outside in the sunshine. "It's like the planet is a giant playground and I've been too small to ride all the rides until now. "Trees! Plants! Like, the outdoors, man," says Mac. So what, exactly, is the source of all this radiant glee? The socks match the tee: plain, white, no fucks. His whole vibe is loose and easy, mimicked by his sagging jeans and Adidas slip-ons. The 24-year-old rapper’s eyes are vaguely obscured under a blue Polo cap, but they still have a sparkle that rivals the diamond studs in his ears. He’s glowing, and it isn't just the August sun beating down on the back patio of a trendy Burbank coffee house.