His later work incorporated jazz elements and he was set to tour later this year with Thundercat, the wide-ranging bassist whose music has gone from experimental hip-hop to thrash metal. On his debut album Blue Slide Park, which went to number one on the US sales chart, he introduced himself: “I ain’t no hipster / But girl I can make your hips stir.”īut Miller gradually tried to evolve from his frat-boy image.
His delivery was uber-masculine, with hard-spit lyrics that often graphically described sexual encounters.
I want to be able to have good days and bad days,” he said.īorn in Pittsburgh, the rapper first found fame releasing music online as a teenager, choosing a minimalist style with heavy beats that harked back to early hip-hop. In an interview published just days before his death, Miller told New York magazine he was trying to tame his negative emotions. He told Rolling Stone when the album came out: “Have I done drugs? Yeah. He addressed both his drug use and his fragile emotional state on his latest album, Swimming, and said he was improving. Miller has been open about his trouble with substance abuse including an addiction to powerful cough syrup - known on the street as purple drank. Grande, who quickly became engaged to comedian Pete Davidson after splitting with Miller, did not immediately comment on the rapper’s death but blocked comments on her Instagram page after a slew of critical remarks. Grande at the time wrote on social media that she had long tried to help Miller become sober but described their relationship as “toxic” and said, “I am not a babysitter or a mother and no woman should feel that they need to be.” In May, shortly after their breakup, Miller crashed his car and was charged with driving under the influence. She guest-starred on his 2016 album The Divine Feminine, and a year later Miller - sporting his signature baseball cap above his tattooed neck - welcomed Grande on the airport tarmac when she returned to the United States following the deadly attack on her concert in Manchester.