John Mayer pens tribute to Mac Miller: “This was going to be Mac’s year”

John Mayer has paid tribute to the late Mac Miller following the rapper’s death last week.

Miller was found unresponsive at his San Fernando Valley home on Friday (September 7). A cause of death has yet to be officially confirmed, but numerous reports have claimed that he died from an apparent overdose. He was 26.

Tributes to the Pittsburgh rapper have continued to come in from across the entertainment world, with Mayer being just one of a number of high-profile figures to remember Miller and his music since the news of his untimely death broke.

Taking to Instagram on Saturday (September 8), Mayer – who contributed guitar to the song ‘Small Worlds’ on Miller’s final album, ‘Swimming’ – remarked that 2018 was going to be “Mac Miller’s year”.

“He made a quantum leap in his music. That’s incredibly hard to do, to evolve and get better and more focused while your career is already underway,” Mayer wrote. “You don’t get there without a lot of work, and Mac had put the work in.

View this post on Instagram

This was going to be Mac Miller’s year. He made a quantum leap in his music. That’s incredibly hard to do, to evolve and get better and more focused while your career is already underway. You don’t get there without a lot of work, and Mac had put the work in. I didn’t expect to play on his album the day he played some songs for me at his house, but when I heard “Small Worlds,” I gave it a short, chirpy little “yup,” which is the highest praise I can give a track. It means we don’t need to say another word, it’s going down. I grabbed the nearest guitar in the room and within a couple of hours we had finished a tune that made me so incredibly happy to have a part in, not to mention we established a nice little friendship. He was so funny I just kind of stopped typing “LOL” back in our texts. Mac was, to me, on permanent LOL status. I gave him whatever guidance I thought I had the right to, having been through the press ringer in the past and wanting him to understand that none of that noise could ever really take a bite out of the music he was about to put out. The last time I saw him, he was playing Hotel Cafe’ in Los Angeles for a crowd of 100 people. He was nervous, and honest about it with the audience. I thought that was so endearing, especially seeing as he would go on to play one of the best sets I’d seen in a very long time. His band was unreal. You gotta know that if you weren’t familiar with Mac Miller, you were about to be, whether you would have seen him at a festival, or a friend was going to catch a show and tell everyone they knew about it (like I did.) Mac put in the work. He made his best album and formed the band that was weeks away from becoming a breakout live sensation. Believe me when I say that. I send my love and support to everyone who knew him better, because what relative little I did, I just adored.

A post shared by John Mayer ? (@johnmayer) on Sep 8, 2018 at 5:32pm PDT

“Mac put in the work,” he added. “He made his best album and formed the band that was weeks away from becoming a breakout live sensation. Believe me when I say that.

“I send my love and support to everyone who knew him better, because what relative little I did, I just adored.” Read Mayer’s full tribute to Miller above.

Another big name to pay tribute to Miller this weekend was Donald Glover, who took a pause during a Childish Gambino show in Chicago to deliver a short speech to remember Miller.