Most Dope: The Extraordinary Life of Mac Miller by Paul CantorMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Malcolm James McCormick was born on January 19, 1992. He began making music at a young age and by 15 was already releasing mixtapes. One of the first true viral superstars, his early records earned him a rabid legion of die-hard fans—as well as a few noteworthy detractors. But despite his undeniable success, Miller was plagued by struggles with substance abuse and depression, both of which fueled his raw and genre-defying music, yet ultimately led to his demise.
Through detailed reporting and interviews with dozens of Miller's confidants, Paul Cantor brings you to leafy Pittsburgh, seductive Los Angeles, and frenzied New York, where you will meet Miller's collaborators, producers, business partners, best friends, and even his roommates. Traveling deep into...
... what was going on in the crowd paled in comparison to what was happening behind the scenes. Malcolm had a real problem. He was fully addicted to lean.
...Malcolm and Donald Trump were only loosely acquainted. Malcolm had the song named after him, and Trump liked that. Trump wasn’t sitting around listening to rap music, but by slapping his name on anything that could be built or sold—from steaks to buildings to suits—he had turned narcissism into an extreme sport. He reveled in anything that seemed to make his name more valuable.
Malcolm wasn’t exactly a Trump fan. He didn’t know much about him. “There was a phase that kind of happened where I liked making songs named after people,” he said. “Like, I did one called ‘Bruce Wayne.’ The idea of the song—it’s not like it’s a song about Donald Trump. But the aura of the song is, kind of.”
“This is a time where people were making a lot of name songs,” producer SAP said. “[Future’s] ‘Tony Montana,’ all of that.”
And Malcolm just knew of Trump the way most people knew of him, as a rich guy symbolically linked to American excess, the crass commercialism and alpha male posturing that was the lifeblood of many a great hip-hop song. Trump himself had been name-dropped by countless artists, from the Beastie Boys and Prince to Rick Ross and Lil Wayne.
“Donald Trump” was a hit. But in the years that had passed since the song’s release, a different Donald Trump had emerged.
No longer a playful and fun guy, Trump had spent the better part of a year arguing that Barack Obama hadn’t been born in the United States and was thus ineligible to be president. “Show us your birth certificate,” he demanded. It was the early days of the birtherism movement. He was toying with running for president himself.
All the while, he was endearing himself to an angry and aggrieved faction of the right-wing political establishment. These were the furthest things from his mind when Malcolm made the song.
“I think [Trump’s] a dick,” he told Marc Ecko when he was given the Fisker Karma. “When he started running for president I was like, ‘Oh, fuck—this is horrible, I have a fucking song with this dude’s name and now he’s being such a douchebag.’”
To add insult to injury, Trump felt he was responsible for the song’s success. And that bothered Malcolm. He could have named it after Bill Gates; except, well, he didn’t. And Trump was . . . Trump. He was a lightning rod for controversy, and Complex smelled drama.
“We had a policy at Complex when we would promote an article on Twitter. If it was something negative, we would never @ the artist,” said Ahmed. “But when we were doing a tweet for that video, I was like, ‘We have to @ Donald Trump because that guy’s gonna respond, he’s got thin skin.’ And Donald Trump responded like fifteen minutes later.”
Trump was livid, and on January 31, 2013, he wrote in a series of tweets: “Little @macmiller, you illegally used my name for your song ‘Donald Trump’ which now has over 75 million hits! Little @macmiller, I want the money not the plaque you gave me! Little @macmiller, I’m now going to teach you a big boy lesson about lawsuits and finance. You ungrateful dog!”
It made for great headlines. But it stressed Malcolm out. He had just settled his lawsuit with Lord Finesse. Now this. “I was with him that day when he saw the tweets,” said Statik Selektah. “He was like, ‘Dude, this guy’s fuckin’ coming at me, he was just telling me he loves me.’”
And yet for all his tough talk, Trump never appeared to do anything. There are no public records of a lawsuit.
“He was just trolling,” said the song’s producer, SAP. “Just being a dickhead.”
Malcolm soon took it all in stride. “I realized, who does Donald Trump beef with?” he said. “Me and Obama. So like, hey.”
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