On a personal note, I had not listened to GO:OD AM until after The Divine Feminine was released, simply because from 2012 and up until his 2016 release I did not care for Mac and just did not care to give him any more chances, immature on my part, but that is just how it happened. With that being said, not listening to him for those 4 years made me realize what I was missing the second I finished my first play-through of The Divine Feminine. This is still to this day one of my favorite records from 2016, and is still a constant listen for myself.

The once drug-influenced, party-centric rapper was gone, making way for a mature, fully fledged hip-hop genius. Some would argue this as a bad thing, that the artist abandoned his original “vibe” and fanbase by getting away from the drug/party-rap, but this was more than that. Miller had matured musically and went in a different artistic direction simply because that was not the person who we was anymore. For any artist, this would be a massive risk to take, potentially alienating the mass majority of your fanbase by changing your sound in such a significant way, but it was something that Mac did with seemingly no regrets. The Divine Feminine debuted at #2 on the Billboard Top 200 in September of 2016.

Mac managed to fuse jazz and blues, and the occasional influence of classical music, with his unique flow and delivery flawlessly. The opening track Congratulations pulls listeners in with its softly played piano, accompanied by powerful violin and string instrumentation, and Miller’s quiet, yet poignant melodic rapping. It is a soft opening, but still very effective in showcasing the overarching themes within the album, namely, relationships and love. This introduction to the new Mac Miller was shocking to say the least on my first listen, but more than welcome.

We (from The Divine Feminine)

This album features some of the smoothest coupling of rap vocals with jazzy instrumentation from a mainstream rapper in recent memory, with Mac playing off of saxophones and string instruments like he had been doing so for years. Standout tracks on this album would be Stay, We (feat. Cee Lo), and the eight and half minute God is Fair, Sexy Nasty (feat. Kendrick Lamar), but in my honest opinion there really is not a bad song on this project.

The most controversial part about looking back at this album would have to be the album’s true purpose. To those who kept up with Miller’s personal life, at the time of the recording and release of this album he was in a relationship with Pop singer Ariana Grande. She is featured on the song My Favorite Part. Most see this album as him dedicating it to her, or that the album is all about their relationship and time spent together, however recently Grande has come out saying that only the song Cinderella was about her. It is a topic that is widely discussed when talking about this album, so it felt necessary to include it somewhere in this article. While it might only be the one song that is directly about her, anyone who listens to the album can clearly understand where Mac was emotionally at the time of recording this, and that the main theme of the album is love.