The estate of renowned rapper Mac Miller has revealed that Balloonerism, his second posthumous effort, is imminent.
A trailer for the upcoming release was shown between performances by Sampha and The Alchemist at Tyler, The Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival in Los Angeles this past weekend, revealing the news.
In addition to two unreleased songs, “The Song That Changed Everything,” which purports to feature SZA, and “5 Dollar Pony Rides,” the two-and-a-half-minute film includes movie-quality computer-generated imagery animation.
Before presenting what looks to be the album cover, the film teaser concludes with the words “Soon.”
Artist Alim Smith created the abstract, balloon-themed piece of art, which is a painting of Mac Miller. A few weeks prior to the rapper’s death in 2018, Smith shared a similar image on Instagram. “Need this,” Mac wrote as a comment on the post.
Before creating his beloved mixtape Faces, the Pittsburgh native reportedly spent a week in 2014 recording Balloonerism.
Quentin Cuff, the rapper’s longtime manager, called the idea “very zany” in his 2022 book The Book of Mac: Remembering Mac Miller.
“Mac was cooped up in the bottom studio [at Mac’s house in L.A.] with [engineer] Josh [Berg].” They were creating bizarre, unearthly, and bizarre creatures. They were very noticeable at the time, and people adored it,” he stated in an excerpt published on Passion of the Weiss.
Balloonerism is an album that was most likely produced prior to Faces. Faces were supposed to be a big part of it, and Balloonerism is its own thing. Many albums that were in the planning stages were released at that time.
Balloonerism will be Mac Miller’s second posthumous album after Circles, while other specifics, such as a release date, have not yet been disclosed.
Before his passing, Mac was working on Circles, which producer Jon Brion finished and released in January 2020. It was meant to be a companion album to his fifth LP, Swimming, which was out just before he died in September 2018 from an unintentional drug overdose.
