This is why we try to avoid cataloguing first impressions for posterity. Mac Miller, the Pittsburgh rapper who might once have looked at home only with a red beer cup clasped in the opposite hand to his microphone, has become something of a chameleon.
Quickly following 'GO:OD AM' and his second instrumental mixtape under the name Larry Fisherman, Miller has returned with 'The Divine Feminine', an LP that combines thematic investment and a broadening of musical horizons with a celebratory air.
Miller's focus here is a shifting one. This is a record about love in its many forms, and the manner in which it colours the everyday, but it's also about absorbing wisdom from the women in his life.
It began as an EP and rapidly expanded once the rapper had the bit between his teeth, but at 10 tracks, traversing easy G-funk and woozy neo-soul, it remains concise and to the point in a world where hip hop records are regularly running to 16, 17 or 18.
Miller is wide-eyed and open-hearted here, looking at things through the lens of infatuation or desire but framed by chasing a greater understanding. That, and a lot of absolutely sincere lines about how much he loves pussy.
When Miller gets off track, which he does at times, there is an all star cast to back him up. Anderson .Paak continues to have a golden 2016 on Dang!, pulling similar moves to those that lit up Domo Genesis's Dapper, while CeeLo Green and Ty Dolla $ign are heavy-lidded and lascivious respectively. Kendrick Lamar turns up on the closer God Is Fair, Sexy, Nasty and seamlessly slips onto Miller's wavelength.
Ariana Grande, though, is the record's ace. Her vocals initially intertwine with Miller, now her boyfriend, before enveloping him entirely on My Favorite Part, a song around which the whole thing comes to orbit. This is a record about women, notably using Miller's grandmother's life as an example of true love (including as a coda to its final song) alongside his adoration of his mother, but to this point it has been lacking their artistic input. Grande tips Miller’s view-from-the-outside on its head.
Miller’s creative engine is clearly in good shape, with ‘The Divine Feminine’ another piece of work that is nothing if not compellingly executed. It ebbs and flows, with its mid-section a little prone to meandering, but it's another reminder that we haven't got him figured out just yet.
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