Screenshot: NPR Tiny Desk
Mac Miller's Brilliant 'Tiny Desk' Performance is Available on Vinyl
The Mac Miller estate will release a new collectors boxset featuring Swimming and his Tiny Desk performance with Thundercat.
The fifth anniversary of the Mac Miller album Swimming is coming to vinyl in a special edition box set. On Thursday (August 3), the late rapper’s estate, ‘92 ‘til Infinity, announced that his fifth studio album would be pressed to vinyl for the first time, along with exclusive artwork.
Along with Swimming, NPR Music partnered with ‘92 ‘til Infinity for Miller’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert to also be available on vinyl. The special engagement was a three-song jam session, with musician and singer-songwriter Thundercat as part of Miller’s band.
“We are thankful to be able to have worked with @nprmusic to press his Tiny Desk performance on vinyl for the first time so that more people can discover Malcolm’s little corner of the Internet that we love so much,” ‘92 Til Infinity wrote on Instagram.
Also in the collection are customized Vans Authentics, several graphic tees, hoodies, hats, shorts, and other Swimming-themed accessories. After Miller’s death in September 2018, Swimming was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards. In 2021, Swimming posthumously became Miller’s first certified-platinum record.
Mac Miller: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concertwww.youtube.com
In 2020, Miller’s producer, Jon Brion, shared that Swimming and the rapper’s 2021 posthumous album, Circles, were two parts of a planned trilogy.
“He had this whole aquatic theme that came out of something we’d talked about when he was working on Swimming. I’d noticed he mentioned water a few times in the lyrics, and then that grew into all these discussions about water and what it sounds like that became kind of a running joke,” Brion told NYT.
He continued, “There were supposed to be three albums: the first, Swimming, was sort of the hybridization of going between hip-hop and song form. The second, which he’d already decided would be called Circles, would be song-based. And I believe the third one would have been just a pure hip-hop record. I think he wanted to tell people, ‘I still love this, I still do this.'”
