The Pharrell question that Mac Miller could never answer
Pharrell and Mac Miller once discussed a collaborative project titled Pink Slime. Although the song ‘Onaroll’ dropped in 2012, the whole body of work unfortunately never received an official release.
Following Mac’s death in 2018, P opened up about how the Pittsburgh rapper wanted to push his musical ability and described some of the jazz rap they recorded together. “I just remember him being a fan of music and wanting to go deeper and challenge himself,” he told Vulture.
“He was really independent in the rap game, but he liked [A Tribe Called Quest] and all the jazzy shit, and he liked a lot of the stuff we did that’s jazz-influenced, rap records that had those kinds of colours and chords. And he wanted to know more about it.”
According to Pharrell, there was one question Mac couldn’t answer, and it related to maximising his potential. “He wanted people to know that there was way more to him than his indie-rap success,” he said. “He wanted people to know the layers and the depth of his potential.
“But I would always tell him, “Who cares that they know? Why is it not an amazing gift that you know this about yourself so much so that you do these things? And that was the question he could never answer. It was the question I don’t think he was gonna be able to answer. He was so focused on that quest that he really didn’t have time to answer.”
He continued, “He wanted people to know and I think people knew, but there was no way of saying it in a really unified, loud way that would make him go, ‘Oh, OK, so you guys get who I am. OK, cool, great.’ The albums did well. It’s not like they weren’t telling him then, but I don’t know if he was ever gonna hear it.”
Speaking to AllHipHop in 2011, Mac, who was said to be “profoundly affected” by Pharrell, spoke about what it was like to work with the producer while revealing he preferred to collaborate in the studio rather than virtually. “I did like, two crazy jams with Pharrell,” he said. “It was dope. He’s real good peoples, and I just came in there and we were just vibing.”
He added, “I like making songs from scratch with people. I’m not a big ‘send me a beat’ type guy. We came up with some real cool shit, and we did two joints. He raps on one, and on the other he just did the beat.”
Pharrell later revealed that he and Mac had recorded 10 songs together. Touching on Mac’s appeal, he told MissInfoTV, “I watched what he did on his own and thought that was interesting. I just felt like I had to do something with him. Pink Slime is his project, and I’m producing it, but none of the records go on unless we’re both feeling it. Mac’s like a concert, festival-centric kid. And we got them records, man.”