Circles a Visual Ode to Mac Miller

I am not a day 1 Mac Miller fan...I knew who he was but I wasn’t listening to much rap from 2010-2015 .I was introduced to Mac Miller’s music by a friend who had a personal connection and we chatted about what it was like to be a friend of a rapper.

A few months later the first single from Mac’s album The Divine Feminine, Dang! featuring Anderson .Paak became one of my favorite songs. It would be on my nighttime playlist when I would be dancing my 1 year old son Balou to sleep. (Totally not appropriate kids song but he didn’t know words so🤷🏼‍♂️) The Divine Feminine was different. He was exploring and experimenting with his voice and blending different kinds of music. I enjoyed watching interviews and reading about his process and journey with music. That is one of the biggest reasons I loved about him as an artist...Creating music was everything. He was such a talented musician. His NPR Tiny Desk concert was amazing, one of my all time favorites. And then a month later, he was gone. I cried when I found out...The first time I cried for an artist. Someone I never met, but so inspired by his music. Sad to not be able to listen to his art form...

Here are some images I took on 1999 expired Kodak Ektachrome 400X during our 2 day Super 8 shoot. I chose this film because I thought it would match perfectly with the style, lighting, and overall feel I was going for. I only have a few rolls of it so it felt very special to use it for the occasion. I love the images and I love how the edit turned out.

When Circles was released a year and a half after his death it was surreal...”Circles” is meant to be the companion album to his previous album, “Swimming”, and was completed with the help of Jon Brion. The concept was “Swimming in Circles” (although I’ve read there was suppose to be a 3rd album). Swimming is more of a rap album but Circles is more of a singer-songwriter album. The themes in each album are connected: of growth, struggle, and surrender.

When I listen to the opening tracks of each album “Come Back to Earth” & “Circles” the connection is evident in the simplest lines “I was drowning, now I’m swimming” and “I cannot be changed, I cannot be changed no, trust me I’ve tried, I just end up right at the start of the line. Drawing circles.” Not to mention in the final song on Swimming “So It Goes” he raps “just like a circle, I go back where I’m from.”I’d like to mention that I liked how Mac didn’t talk about the specific meaning of lyrics leaving it up to the listener interpret them.

To me, his album Swimming portrays the struggle as well as self awareness and the seeing the light in dark times...To leave fans with that album was heartbreaking...And then, Circles was announced and released a year and a half after his passing. A complimentary album to Swimming, the light to the darkness, him more self aware about the daily beauty of the struggle. The universal feeling and emotion of the human experience. After listening, I felt like it was the message that he was ok, everything is ok, we are going to be ok.

January 17th 2020, Circles was released. one of my first favorite songs from Circles, was Hand Me Downs. It was/still is on my nighttime playlist when I am dancing my daughter Remy to sleep who was born a few weeks after Circles was released. For months, every time that song would come on when I was cradling her, I noticed her to instantly begin relaxing before the first verse started...I would sing the lyrics out loud and by the end of the song she was asleep. one night I was listening to the song “Circles” and I had a series of images playing in my head, a story...This was in July and I had listened to the album countless times but nothing ever this vivid came to mind..so I jotted descriptions down.

Later I told my wife Elena about it and asked her if she would co-create with me and she loved the idea. A couple months passed and I realized we would need to film the edit in November in order to have enough time to get the film processed and scanned as well as editing time to release the video on the year anniversary of the release of Circles.

This album has been on repeat since it was released. The messages are so simple but powerful. The self awareness and the lyrics about the beauty of life and the ups and downs provide resolution to Miller’s life.

Thank you my beautiful wife Elena, for co-creating with me to bring my vision to life. (@loveyourwholelife) and I am thankful for the artists that contributed and helped me stylize the shoot and trusted my vision based on my abstract descriptions of what I wanted to create. Wyatt @taprootliving provided some of her rings as well as helped style. She also held Remy and watched Balou so Elena and I could create...the b&w section I had Remy sleeping in the ergo while I filmed. Balou was just out of frame on half the shots from the upcountry section. Katherine @moonspun_jewelry made a pair of hoops for us and Ginny @vintage_kantha gave us some kanthas. And thank you to everyone who watched the video, I appreciate it. I hope it made you want to listen to the whole album.