There's an unreleased Mac Miller album sitting in the vault, according to Thelonious Martin.
The producer shared the news during a recent interview with DJBooth, claiming Miller and Madlib had cooked up a joint album before last summer. Martin said he learned about the project at the 2018 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, where Madlib played a never-before-heard Miller cut. The producer asked the DJ/rapper if he was sitting on any other unreleased records; Martin said there was "plenty."
"When [Miller and I were] working on 'Guidelines,' he was always excited about all these other songs. He had this Madlib album, called Maclib," Martin told DJBooth. "I opened for Madlib in Chicago last summer, at Pitchfork. So I'm opening for Madlib, and about 15, 20 minutes left in my set, Madlib pulls up. Pete Rock walks up as well. So I'm trying to focus and DJ, and Madlib gets on and 15 minutes into his set he just randomly plays a Mac Miller joint. And I turn to him, I'm like, 'There’s more of these, right?' He’s said, 'Oh, yeah, there's a whole album. Maclib.' What! What! He just kept moving on with his DJ set."
Martin said he doesn't know if Maclib will ever get an official release, but he's hopeful Madlib will decide to someday "bless the world with that project."
Clockwork DJ, Mac Miller's longtime DJ, also teased he had the records.
Miller's last full-length effort, Swimming, dropped in early August 2018, about one month before the rapper died at the age of 26. The project earned Miller his first Grammy nomination; however, it ended up losing to Cardi B's Invasion of Privacy in the Best Rap Album category.
Martin also spoke about the late rapper's intentions behind Swimming, which was originally titled Guidelines. The producer said Miller had set out to deliever an album that truly touched his fans.
"How do you have conversations with music, instead of it just being songs? How do we open up songs a little bit more?" Martin said. "All these classic songs either tell stories or have very important conversations. That’s one of the things Mac was so good at: he was talking to you, having a conversation with you. Whether showing his own scars or something else, he was amazing at that."
You can read the full interview here.
