Malcolm James McCormick (January 19, 1992 – September 7, 2018), known by the stage name Mac Miller, was an American rapper. He began his career in Pittsburgh's local hip hop scene in 2007, at the age of 15. In 2010, he signed a record deal with independent label Rostrum Records and released his breakthrough mixtapes K.I.D.S. (2010) and Best Day Ever (2011). Miller's debut studio album, Blue Slide Park (2011), became the first independently distributed debut album to top the US Billboard 200 since 1995.

In 2013, Miller founded the record label imprint REMember Music. After his second studio album, Watching Movies with the Sound Off (2013), he left Rostrum and signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records in 2014. With them, he released five studio albums: GO:OD AM (2015), The Divine Feminine (2016), Swimming (2018), and the posthumous albums Circles (2020) and Balloonerism (2025). For Swimming, he was posthumously nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. Along with recording, he also served as a record producer for himself and other artists under the pseudonym Larry Fisherman.

Miller struggled with addiction and substance abuse, which was often referenced in his lyrics. He died from an accidental drug overdose of cocaine, fentanyl, and alcohol at his home at the age of 26.

Malcolm James McCormick was born on January 19, 1992, in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was a son of Karen Meyers, a photographer, and Mark McCormick, an architect, and had an older brother, Miller. His mother is Jewish, and his father is Christian. Miller was raised Jewish and had a bar mitzvah. He grew up playing basketball, football, soccer, and lacrosse. He attended Winchester Thurston School for a time but graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School.

At age 5, Miller was gifted a musical keyboard for Hanukkah and told his parents he wished to make music, recalling: "I hooked that thing up and never stopped playing it." A self-taught musician, Miller played piano, guitar, drums, and bass by the age of six. He first started rapping at the age of 14. Before that, he wanted to be a singer. In high school, he decided to focus on his rap career, later noting, "Once I hit 15, I got real serious about it and it changed my life completely ... I used to be into sports, play all the sports, go to all the high school parties. But once I found out hip-hop is almost like a job, that's all I did."

Originally going by the name of Easy Mac (often stylized as EZ Mac), he released his first mixtape But My Mackin' Ain't Easy in 2007 at the age of 15. In 2008, he and fellow Pittsburgh-based rapper Beedie formed the rap duo The Ill Spoken, and released their mixtape How High. The duo decided to part ways shortly after, in order to focus on their solo careers. By 2009, he rebranded himself as Mac Miller, and released two mixtapes: The Jukebox: Prelude to Class Clown and The High Life. At the 2010 Pittsburgh Hip Hop Awards, Miller won 21 & Under of the Year, and Best Hip Hop Video for "Live Free".

Miller signed with the independent Pittsburgh-based label Rostrum Records in July 2010, in the lead-up to his mixtape K.I.D.S. Rostrum president Benjy Grinberg met Miller while recording with Wiz Khalifa at ID Labs. Although Grinberg started giving Miller advice, he did not show interest in getting involved with his career until Miller began work on K.I.D.S., when he "noticed a maturation in his sound and approach to his music". By that point, Miller had started attracting interest from other record companies, but chose Rostrum due to its location in his hometown and association with Wiz Khalifa. K.I.D.S. was released by Rostrum in August 2010. During this time, Miller broke through with a focus on social media engagement, digital sales, and persistent touring, due to a lack of radio airplay or mainstream features.

XXL featured Miller in its annual "Freshman Class" list of 2011, alongside 10 other rappers including Kendrick Lamar and Meek Mill. Miller released his fifth mixtape, Best Day Ever, in March 2011. Its single "Donald Trump" became his first song to chart on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 75, and received a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Also in March 2011, he released a six-track EP, On and On and Beyond. Intended to target a new audience, four of its tracks were previously included on his mixtapes. The EP was his first entry into the US Billboard 200 albums chart at number 55. Leading up to the release of his debut studio album, and to celebrate reaching one million followers on Twitter, Miller released his sixth mixtape, I Love Life, Thank You, on October 14, 2011.