Mac Miller offers an invitation during the call-and-response chorus of Gees, one that invites the listener to both receive a male appendage in their mouth, and have it slapped across their cheeks. That he's actually concerned with it being a tongue that goes into cheek is revealed in his third pass through the chrorus, when he adds: "Now just the parents!" And so continues modern rap's tiresome plot to make sexual violence sound like a slightly naughty lark.
He may be the other independent hip-hop act to top the Billboard Hot 100 of late, beside Macklemore & Lewis, but Miller clearly has no similar intentions to upturn rap's homophobic and misogynistic boat. Jerking around in the hoodie, shorts and shades of a chronic GTA5 addict, his boorish machismo and cheesy stoner shtick make it tough to empathise later, when he plays the jilted rom-hop victim on a stirring Missed Calls, about his girlfriend ditching him in a torrent of abuse. What on earth could've gone wrong there, Mac?
As thick as Thicke, Miller is nonetheless more talented than you'd expect from someone with his own MTV2 reality show. His rapid rhymes are so drilled and acrobatic you could imagine his tonsils being trained from the age of three by a Russian gymnastics coach. His backbeats run a stylish gamut from the sepulchre rap of Eminem's more thunder-cloaked moments to nursery mobile melodies, Daft Punk vocoder disco, silent movie chase music and, on Knock Knock, a showtune akin to Singin' in the Rain with more balling.
Yet, with the air of a glorified PA to plug his second album Watching Movies With the Sound Off, Miller's set looks to fizzle into Notorious BIG and Bob Marley covers until saved by fierce tumbles through Frick Park Market and Lucky Ass Bitch that open venue-wide circle pits and inspire Miller to attempt frantic, uncourteous lovemaking with a nearby stage-light. His wild claims that "This gon' be the best day ever!", though, are only justified in that he hasn't yet had to beat fellatio out of anyone.
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