Mac Miller’s ‘Balloonerism’ and the Moral Dilemma of Posthumous Rap Releases
On “Do You Have a Destination?” a track from Mac Miller’s “Balloonerism,” his second posthumous release, the rapper muses on one of his most frequently explored topics: life and death. “I went to sleep faded, then I woke up invisible,” he states, later adding, “Pray this life reciprocal and I’ma come back an eagle.” These themes are common in Mac’s work, but just like Juice WRLD’s warbling about heavy drug use or Lil Peep’s candid bars about severe depression, they take on a new level of heaviness after the artist is gone.
“Balloonerism,” which was recorded during a feverishly creative period between 2013 and 2014, is 2025’s first posthumous album, but it also feels like a moment for reflection on the practice at large. Other MCs who passed around the same time as Miller — like Juice WRLD and XXXTentacion — have released what their estates are calling their final albums, signaling the end of an era in posthumous projects that have played a solemn role in modern rap culture. This diverse collection of emcees reshaped how hip-hop sounded in their own specific ways, from the Soundcloud rappers bringing in pop-punk influences and Miller’s incorporation of jazz and live instrumentation, to Pop Smoke helping Brooklyn Drill reach the national stage. Their contributions differed greatly, but they made a significant mark on the artists that followed, often leaving an archive of unreleased music behind to reach new generations.
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While there are a few more penciled in for release this year, including the first posthumous LPs from Coolio and Migos’ Takeoff, it feels like we’ve reached a chapter’s end, or at least an inflection point. Loss has been a consistent theme of rap’s last decade, from underground legends like MF Doom and battle rapper Pat Stay to mainstream stars like Miller and Pop Smoke. Now, the archives of many deceased artists who feel synonymous with the late 2010s and early 2020s era are running dry, and while it’s a sad reality that rappers will continue to pass, we haven’t seen the same output from the estates of PnB Rock, Young Dolph, or Gangsta Boo; likely, we won’t see another comparable run of posthumous release in the near future.
Posthumous releases are not limited to hip-hop, of course – 2024 alone saw projects from Sophie, reggae legend Lee “Scratch” Perry, and Johnny Cash – but rap feels uniquely connected to this issue because so many MCs have suffered untimely deaths under tragic circumstances at particularly young ages. Rappers like Pop Smoke, Peep and Lil Keed were in their early 20s, while 2Pac, the Notorious B.I.G. and Miller all passed well before their 30th birthdays. And many of these artists were staggeringly prolific: Juice WRLD left behind roughly 1,000 songs with his label, while Miller has hundreds of unreleased tracks and collaborations in the vault with Madlib, Pharrell and Metro Boomin that fans one day hope to hear.
Whether those songs end up in the public’s hands, or are even worthy of release, is where posthumous rap records teeter on win or loss. While typically well-intended, they largely miss the mark, receiving poor reviews and rarely reaching the same audience the MC had in their lifetime. And while they often attain commercial success — like Pop Smoke’s “Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon,” his No. 1 album released just a few months after his tragic death in 2020 — most fail to emulate an artist’s meteoric success in life. Fans sometimes view these projects as a cash-grab, or cobbled together from music that went unreleased for a reason.
But in many instances, it can be an emotional challenge for any fan still grieving. Critically acclaimed L.A. rapper Icecoldbishop describes himself as a massive fan of artists like Miller, but says he often doesn’t listen heavily to posthumous albums because of the complex emotions associated with them and his own history of loss. He remembers exactly where he was when he learned that Miller passed, and says he can’t help but think about whether any late artist would approve of the creative choices made on these LPs.
“When I get invested in an artist while they’re alive, I feel like I understand their tendencies and how they make music,” Bishop says. “So when they pass and then I hear the albums that come up, I’ll be like, ‘Damn, I wonder if they would’ve liked that clap. I wonder if they would’ve liked this beat. I wonder if they would’ve liked this feature.’”
In most cases, the musicians tasked with finishing a posthumous album describe it as less an act of creative joy and more one of solemn duty. In an interview with Complex, Lil Peep’s friend and producer Smokeasac described emotionally exhausting 10-hour studio sessions hearing the voice of his late associate on loop. “I would get goosebumps, and I literally felt like he was standing behind my back watching me do this. It was just a crazy process of me wanting to be motivated slash being depressed and missing my best friend,” he said.
Jon Brion told Vulture about the rigorous and draining process of finishing Mac Miller’s “Circles,” one of the rare posthumous albums considered a resounding success. “I worked painfully slowly,” said Brion. “It may sound odd that this took longer on some individual jobs for each song than it normally would, because I was trying to figure out the way to change it as little as possible.”
The inverse has been unsurprisingly common, as late artists are paired with collaborators who they never worked with during their lifetime (i.e. Pop Smoke and Dua Lipa on “Demeanor,” Notorious B.I.G. and Korn on “Wake Up”). There was significant controversy surrounding the 2018 release of Lil Peep’s “Falling Down,” which featured XXXTentacion and led to a lengthy public debate about whether Peep would have worked with the problematic artist of his own volition. And yet, the appetite was still there, as it is for many leftovers: the track remains Peep’s highest charting single by a wide margin and sits at over 1.3 billion Spotify streams.
As an artist’s posthumous CV grows, it often becomes clear that raw, unfinished, and inferior demos are making up the basis of these new releases, and it’s fairly evident in the records’ quality. Critics called the most recent releases from Pop Smoke and XXXTentacion, for instance, “disingenuous” and “haphazard,” and oftentimes the deeper someone’s unreleased archive is mined, the weaker the material ends up, with raw and unstructured songs being heavily tweaked to make the finished product. Big names are brought in to fill out space; the optimistic view is that those collaborators were simply paying their respects.
The circumstances of each posthumous release are different, and while rare, some success stories do cut through. In hip-hop, where mixtapes are often released non-commercially, a common practice today is for artist estates to get previously released records cleared for streaming. These re-releases come with little stigma, a reminder of the greatness an artist once possessed. Miller’s 2014 tape “Faces,” which was recorded around the same time as “Balloonerism,” launched on DSPs in 2021 and hit No. 3 on the Billboard 200, whereas Lil Peep’s 2016 “Hellboy” received its first commercial release in 2020 and peaked at no. 52.
Around the industry, Miller’s “Circles” is regarded as one of the strongest posthumous releases in both quality and care. It was far along at the time of Miller’s passing, and he was already working closely with Brion, which worked to the final product’s advantage. (It’s a similar situation to J Dilla’s “The Shining,” which was finished by his collaborator Karreim Riggins, or Big Pun’s underrated “Yeeeah Baby,” which saw Fat Joe serve as executive producer.) Brion, an acclaimed producer, composer, and songwriter, was judicious about who he brought into the sessions, telling Vulture they were musicians he’d explicitly discussed with Mac and explaining that he did not have to complete thoughts on Miller’s behalf because of where the record was in its process.
It’s impossible to talk about posthumous releases without considering the artist’s estate itself. To Bishop, if an estate is run by the late musician’s family, there’s a tricky conversation around releasing music in order to provide the kind of financial support that they would likely have received while the artist was alive. Who heads an estate varies widely, from the mothers of Miller and Peep to a more collaborative approach, like in the case of DMX between his family and Artist Legacy Group, a company specializing in music estate management. In the vast majority of cases, the music is stronger when the family is involved.
“I understand that a lot of these artists take care of their families,” Bishop says. “They leave the estate to these families and they got to figure out how to uphold these estates, figure out how to keep the revenue, but also dealing with the labels, trying to jerk them the same way they jerk the artists.”
“Balloonerism” is, in the troubled lineage of posthumous releases, a stellar record, a timestamp of Miller amid the musical period that changed the course of his career. It’s an example of when something goes right in a world where releases often go wrong, an experimental emblem of an artist willing to try something new at a time when convention was a key to success. That glimpse into greatness is what makes “Balloonerism” — and the best of posthumous releases — worth exploring.
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