Mac Miller born Malcolm James McCormick back in ninety-two is a rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer from Pittsburgh who started his career back in 2007. The song comes from his fifth studio album that was released back on August 3rd, 2018. Being the second single off the album and the first and only to get an actual music video. Three months later Mac passed away at the age of 26 due to an accidental drug overdose with the technicalities being “mixed drug toxicity” of fentanyl, cocaine, and alcohol.
The music video starts in a slow zoom into an old fashion casket underground. As it zooms you see the silhouette of Mac holding a flashlight while looking around. The clothing he is wearing is an all-white outfit that seems to be aged and dirty. As the video zooms, close-ups are shown of what looks like nails as if to give off the feeling that he was buried alive and is stuck due to the fact that he is nailed in. As he continues rapping the camera goes through different angles where he takes off his right shoe and pushes it towards his arm and reaches in and gets a cigarette and puts it in mouth and grabs a single match and then lights it against the side of the casket as he lights the cigarette and takes a couple of puffs. The angle changes to a close-up profile shot where you see a tired looking mac rapping to the song playing. Then on the same right side, he reaches into his pocket where he gets his pocket knife out and starts to carve a circle with the Latin term “Memento mori” meaning remember that you have to die. After looking at this for some time Mac then starts to punch that circle repeatedly until he can break free just like the part from Kill Bill Volume 2 where Beatrix Kiddo tries to do almost the exact same thing.
But then he finally breaks out of the coffin and comes out of the ground it then shows he is on a mountain of dirt as he stands up straight and cleans himself off there is an explosion that sends him flying into the air and the remainder of the song continues with explosions and him slowly getting back on his feet to then withstand the aftermath.
The lyrics on its own talk about how he is trying to find a place to end up and how he is just out in the open with nothing to hide. Him also trying to tell himself that he will be alright. As he talks about the many lows he has felt some big ones being his DUI’s and his relationship as well as his mental health.