What follows is a candid look at the Pittsburgh native’s past six years, starting with his ascent, when he was 19, as a popular but critically panned rapper. “I was an easy target. I admit that,” he says now. “It became one of those things where I got so much negativity that it almost became, like, ‘There’s no point to overly hate on this dude, let me look in and see what he’s doing.’ And when you look in, there’s some good music there.” Following his 2011 debut album, Billboard's first independently released No.1 in over a decade, Mac moved to Los Angeles, where it seemed to many he was thriving. That’s where Andrew Nosnitsky met him for Mac Miller's 2013 The FADER cover story, and where he played an endearing role in Earl Sweatshirt’s cover too.

"It’s like an ascension"