was also a place of heartache for Miller. The caliber of Angelenos who came rolling through over the years - from Flying Lotus to Kendrick Lamar to producer and film composer Jon Brion - speaks to how thoroughly he overcame his initial image many were precisely the type of prestigious acts that seemed unlikely ever to cross paths with Miller back in the bad old frat-rap days. Miller’s musical ripening took place in Los Angeles, where he moved after his debut took off - “Greatest decision of my life,” he once told an interviewer - and where he instituted what was often referred to as an open-door policy at his home studio. And sonically, the record felt a world away from his earliest stuff, with as much singing as rapping amid lush arrangements dotted with horns and strings. “The Divine Feminine,” released the next year, uncovered a new tenderness it finishes with a touching monologue about the endurance of love by Miller’s grandmother.

RELATED: As Mac Miller gained fame, the confessional rapper kept ties to the underground scene that lifted him up » (CBS Photo Archive / CBS via Getty Images) Mac Miller performs on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on Aug. When he first appeared, Miller had the look and feel of a carefree party rapper “Blue Slide Park,” named after a Pittsburgh playground, presented a sweet and fun-loving bro whose enjoyment of life was exceeded only by his enjoyment of the white privilege that enabled him to bypass many of the traditional steps to hip-hop success. His album “Swimming,” which came out just weeks before his death, showcased an artist still finding himself.

Yet Miller, who died Friday at age 26 of an apparent drug overdose, also managed during his too-short career to do what the internet makes difficult: He evolved.

And later, after he started rapping himself, he used YouTube and social media to build a following with little institutional support - a following robust enough that his debut album, 2011’s “Blue Slide Park,” became the first independently released project to top the Billboard 200 in more than 15 years. Mac Miller was undeniably a child of the internet.Īs a teenager in the early 2000s, he went online to study the hip-hop stars working hundreds or thousands of miles from his home in Pittsburgh.

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