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Mac Miller: Balloonerism review – poignant second posthumous album

Made during a difficult time in the late rapper’s life, this abandoned work captures the musicianship and introspection of his fertile mid-career

The second posthumous album released since the death of American rapper Mac Miller in 2018 ponders delusions and lost innocence. Recorded during 2013-14, a fertile period in which Miller also released a maturing album, Watching Movies With the Sound Down(2013) and a hard-hitting mixtape, Faces(2014), Balloonerism finds him at a psychological low ebb. The mood draws on soul and jazz, with funk bassist Thundercat and his brothers Kintaro and Ronald Bruner Jr lending a hand on several cuts.

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