The instrumental itself is rather basic, but good enough to be enjoyable for the entire 8 minutes all the same. Certified club banger craftsman DJ Dahi tones it down a bit here, but not so much as to lose his recognizable sound. “Cinderella”, on the other hand, is so excellent it deserves a paragraph all to itself. “God Is Fair” closes the album out with an extended solo done by none other than Grammy-nominated jazz pianist Robert Glasper - the fact that he now fits on a Mac Miller album is quite hilarious - before the story arc of the album is wrapped up nicely by Miller’s grandmother telling the story of her relationship with her husband in a similar vein to Grande’s briefer implementation of the same thing on her 2013 track “Daydreamin”. “Cinderella” and the aforementioned “God Is Fair, Sexy Nasty” are musically interesting enough, more so because of the instrumental than Miller, to carry a song for this length. Two of its songs, for example, exceed 8 minutes in length and never get boring. Some of its more experimental qualities make it stand out among the pack. Being heavily influenced by Grande and Lamar, two of the most talented artists in the music industry at the moment, is shown to have had an overwhelmingly positive effect.Īs someone who could never get into his music before, seeing Miller flex his creative muscles is fantastic to see. Tracks like “Stay” and “Skin” are dominated by a freeform saxophone player, and Miller actually drops a few references to the album sporadically in his bars. Many of Lamar’s main collaborators appear on the album, including Bilal, Cee Lo Green and producer Tae Beast, while Lamar himself appears on the hook of closing track “God Is Fair, Sexy Nasty”. While Grande is certainly quite present on the album - she is the subject matter of most of its songs, after all - it would appear that Miller’s biggest influence for going ahead with this idea was Kendrick Lamar’s sprawling opus To Pimp A Butterfly. He doesn’t exactly make much of an attempt to disguise this, either. Here’s to hoping that this is an evolution of his sound, rather than an experimental side project. Although Miller still can’t avoid throwing in some cringeworthy lines here and there, this is a stunning improvement over all of his previous work. New partner Ariana Grande’s influence is all over The Divine Feminine, from the string section-backed introduction (which is begun by Grande stating the album’s title over of a flurry of her giggles) to the catchy hooks scattered throughout. Miller actually showcases his singing voice for the first time on many songs on this album, and the results are surprisingly great. He abandons the goofy frat-rap which cluttered many of his past releases for a take on smooth and romantic hip-hop music, taking more of an influence from alternative R&B and jazz.
He also revealed that the album initially began as an EP, but he found that as he got deeper into the material, he had to further “shed light on the topic.Mac Miller takes a complete sonic left turn on this project. “It’s an album that’s all about the journey that is love,” he told Lowe and the vibe of the first single fits into that concept. On The Divine Feminine‘s first single, “Dang!,” the rapper is in a more crooning, reflective mode as he sings of the allure and confusion that comes with a relationship over a smooth funk groove.
“And just kind of like how that mirrors the soul of a woman, and you know, like Mother Earth and falling in love with the universe.” “It was actually a concept that was told to me about just the energy of the world being a female energy, the energy of the planet,” Miller said of of the album’s title during his interview with Lowe. Miller’s fourth studio album will include features with Kendrick Lamar, Cee-Lo, Robert Glasper and others. The album will be released in the fall and he also premiered the first single “Dang!” during the show, which features Anderson. He announced The Divine Feminine during an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1 Radio on Thursday. Mac Miller has unveiled details about his forthcoming album.