Earlier this year, the estate of Mac Miller released a new album, Balloonerism, the fourth original album of his since his passing in 2018. The majority of the songs on the album had been leaked already, but as someone who actively doesn’t listen to leaked music, this album was a completely new experience to me, and I loved it. All of the songs felt like his music that I had enjoyed while he was alive. My issue with the album is that it didn’t feel like an album but more a collection of songs. It felt like someone found fourteen finished tracks that all had a similar sound and put them together. It makes me wonder why the project was released in the first place. Was it an opportunity for fans to listen to new music from an artist they once loved, or a way for someone to cash in on whatever unfinished songs were left on the table.

I can at least find some solace in the case of Mac Miller knowing that all of the rights to his music, and subsequently all of the profits, go to his family, but sadly this isn’t the case for most artists who have music released posthumously. Juice WRLD, another rapper who passed away within the past few years, has released five albums since his passing, with known incomplete tracks and AI copies of his voice, of which most of the profits are going to the record label he was signed to when alive. While I enjoy a few of the music that has been released for him, the majority feels like a last ditch cash-grab from record executives trying to scrape whatever value is left from a person who tragically passed away. 

I mentioned earlier that I make a point to not listen to any leaked music. I believe that if an artist wanted you to listen to their art, they would’ve released it themselves, and by stalking SoundCloud uploads, you’re taking away all of the creative control that the artist deserves. This focal belief is the same reason why I don’t like posthumous album releases. An artist’s legacy is built by the foundation of work that they have created and released, and by taking an artist’s unfinished work and releasing it, these media executives are directly impacting that artist’s legacy without their input. Circles by Mac Miller, his first album released after his passing, was known to be an already completed project, but there’s no telling how much of Miller’s own creativity went into the making of this new project. Are these the songs he would’ve wanted on the album? Is this the order he would have put them in? Would he have chosen this title or cover art? Would he want this to be a part of his legacy? All of these questions kept running through my head throughout my entire listen of Balloonerism, and they’re questions that I ask whenever music is released posthumously.I understand the desire to hear new music from artists who have passed too soon. For the short period of listening to the album you can live in a world where they’re still around. You can believe that they put their heart into a body of work and then decided to share it with you. But that ultimately isn’t the case. Mac Miller did not make Balloonerism. Mac Miller made a collection of songs, and someone else put them together in a way that seemed fit and published it. As someone who writes, I care about my work a lot, and I want people to see what I believe illustrates my thoughts, beliefs, and ideas in the ways I want them. If someone were to take everything I’ve written and not released and give it to the world I would be very unhappy. Not because I thought that the work wasn’t good, or that it wasn’t finished, but because I had lost all creative control of my expression. Ultimately, it’s up to the listener to decide if they will listen to this type of music, and it’s up to the families of these artists to decide if they want to share their work in the state it’s in. I just hope that if it happens, it is done with a level of mutual respect for the artist, and the picture they were trying to create with their work.