Every artist has one album that made them want to start making music. It usually ends up being ground zero for all of their influences. You can pick out certain things they emulate in order to capture a similar sensation that their favorite record made them feel. For Mac Miller, that artist was Harlem legend Big L.
In a 2013 conversation with Complex, the late Pittsburgh rapper mused about his top 25 albums of all time. The list spanned everywhere from Bob Dylan to Bob Marley to Lil B. But when prompted about the defining album of his early life, Big L was the immediate answer. Since he was a teenager, he tried to put on his best impression and rapped about things he had no business rapping about.
“That’s the album that made me start rapping. Everybody knows that about me. That’s who I used to try to be like,” Mac Miller admitted. “I used to be a f**king straight gangster street rapper from the projects of New York. Did I ever play you when I was a gritty New York rapper from the projects? It’s definitely on YouTube. It’s crazy, I was 15, I was robbing people, and I was into the East Coast/West Coast beef [in my raps].”
Mac Miller Recalled Trying to Be a Harlem Street Rapper Like Big L Early in His Career
Miller even recalled some of the absurd lines he used to rap that didn’t reflect his life in the slightest. But all of it was to be in service to one of his favorite rappers of all time. “In one of my raps my line was like, ‘On the East Side we ride on the weed high/Jacking cats packing fat stacks in their Levis/Rap stacks for cash that we divide/Fee-fi we ain’t going down where you reside, creeping/Running through your house while you sleeping,’ Mac Miller rapped.
“I had a line where I said, ‘Stay strapped with the gat to your kneecap.’ I was bad, gang banging. Not to be f**ked with. Hardcore motherf***er named Mac. That s**t was crazy,” he added.
Mac Miller would eventually realize his dream of being featured on a song with Big L. Unfortunately, it was long after he passed away. The two late rap legends posthumously collaborated on “Forever” in 2025. It would eventually make Big L’s album Harlem’s Finest: Return of the King in the same year.
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