Column- Most Dope: Remembering Mac Miller

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Walking down the steps of the Freestone County Courthouse this morning, I opened up Snapchat to a particular memory.

It was three years ago today, an overcast day just like Wednesday in Fairfield, only it was a Pennsylvania Sunday. This usually meant (and still means) two things: Biting my nails all day over Steelers and fantasy football.

That day, the Steelers welcomed the Cincinnati Bengals to Heinz Field with 65,072 in attendance, including one member of Steeler Nation set to perform across the street at Stage AE that night.

As he once instructed, since I didn't know him then, I'll just call him Mac.

At about halftime of the game, my friend Keith and I loaded up his truck for the ride from State College to Pittsburgh. We knew we couldn't miss Mac Miller doing his thing, in his hometown, in front of his people.

The set was only about an hour long (with Mac giving the rest of the time, and packed house, up to his lesser-known label-mates, something he didn't have to do at all), but was electric. 

My Snapchat memory was screaming out to a particular song from a peculiar time, "Frick Park Market," off of the (to me, anyways) legendary Blue Slide Park album.

Being in the city that birthed the rapper, the album, and the landmark the song is based on gave out an incredible feeling. One year after his tragic passing at the age of 26, and three years after the show, I still have goosebumps.

The meaning behind "Frick Park Market" being in a peculiar time for me was that, well, it was. I was a faux-emo, thrash-metal exclusive 15-year-old, going to high school about 45 minutes outside of Philadelphia. I hated most rap, besides Eminem and 50 Cent, and I especially hated all the kids around me trying to be wannabe gangsters.

One symbol of the 2011-12 time period was Mac's "Most Dope" hoodie and other merchandise, and being in Pennsylvania, he was the hot thing at that time. Until Dreams and Nightmares dropped a few months later. But, I digress.

I couldn't stand it. I thought it was typical teenage trend-hopping, the sort of thing my fake intellectualism latched onto as a sticking point. Never had I listened to the man, of course, but I thought it was cool to hate at the time.

Around the end of 2013, I caved and started to listen. What's fun about hating something unless you get new reasons to hate it, right? After all, the album Watching Movies With the Sound Off had gotten rave reviews, even from the most pure of hip-hop heads.

After taking in that album for a good six months, I remembered how dumb I was to judge the book by its cover. If I could meet the man, I would express that first and foremost.

The album, to this day, holds up as one of the best of the decade. With carefully constructed, yet effortlessly flowing, rhythm in his words; Mac delivered a surefire classic in a year he fought for attention with releases from Drake, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and other heavy-hitters.

It wasn't just the backpack rap style that brought him acclaim on the album, with more melodic tunes such as "Objects In the Mirror" (my personal favorite song of his) holding serious emotional weight, especially "Remember."

A song about a now-dead friend, I feel like fans can relate a year later, remembering when they were just kids listening to Mac Miller for the first time. Rapping about imperfections and a bruised family life, his legend will be in the connection he made with many who went down a similar path.

Throughout the rest of his career, Mac always evolved; whether it be live bands backing him rather than a track, putting out three more records, or recording with other A-list talents in his own right. The track "Earth," a bonus on the "Live from Space" album, is the best I have ever heard Future sound, thanks in part to the carefree tone Miller sets.

In the time since his passing, I have listened to his music with nothing but a smile, a nod to the sky, and a silent thanks for the man and musician he became. Not bad for a corny white boy from the 'Burgh.

For me, getting to see him live in his element is a memory I'll never forget. I don't need Snapchat to remind me of that.