On “Do you have a destination?” a track from Mac Miller’s “Balloonerism”, his second posthumous releasethe rapper ponders one of his most explored subjects: life and death. “I fell asleep faded, then I woke up invisible,” he says, later adding, “Ask this life reciprocated and I’ll come back an eagle.” These themes are common in Mac’s work, but like Juice WRLD’s rants about heavy drug use or Lil Peeps candid bars about severe depression, they take on a new level of weight after the artist is gone.
Recorded during a feverishly creative period between 2013 and 2014, “Balloonerism” is 2025’s first posthumous album, but it also feels like a moment of reflection on the practice at large. Other MCs who were around at the same time as Miller — like Juice WRLD and XXXTentacion — have released what their estates call their final albums, signaling the end of an era of posthumous projects that have played a celebratory role in modern rap culture. This diverse collection of emcees reshaped what hip-hop sounded like in their own specific ways, from the Soundcloud rappers bringing in pop-punk influences and Miller’s incorporation of jazz and live instrumentation, to Pop Smoke help Brooklyn Drill reach the national stage. Their contributions varied widely, but they left a significant mark on the artists who followed, often leaving behind an archive of unreleased music to reach new generations.
While there are a few more to be released this year, including the first posthumous LPs from Coolio and Migo’s Takeoff, it feels like we’ve reached the end of a chapter, or at least an inflection point. Loss has been a recurring theme throughout rap’s past decade, from underground legends like MF Doom and battle rapper Pat Stay to mainstream stars like Miller and Pop Smoke. Now, the archives hold many deceased artists that feel synonymous with the late 2010s and early 2020s era, and while it’s a sad reality that rappers will continue to pass, we haven’t seen the same output from PnB Rocks estates, Young Dolph or Gangsta Boo; we likely won’t see another comparable series posthumously released in the near future.
Posthumous releases aren’t limited to hip-hop, of course — 2024 alone saw projects from Sophie, reggae legend Lee “Scratch” Perry and Johnny Cash — but rap feels uniquely connected to this issue because so many MCs have suffered untimely deaths in tragic circumstances especially at young ages. Rappers like Pop Smoke, Peep and Lil Keed were in their early 20s, while 2Pac, the Notorious BIG and Miller all passed well before their 30s. And many of these artists were astonishingly prolific: Juice WRLD left behind approximately 1,000 songs with his labelwhile Miller has hundreds of unreleased songs and collaborations in the vault with Madlib, Pharrell and Metro Boomin that fans hope to one day hear.
Whether or not these songs end up in the hands of the public, or are even worthy of release, is where posthumous rap records fold for profit or loss. While usually well-intentioned, they largely miss the mark, receive poor reviews, and rarely reach the same audience that the MC had during his lifetime. And while they often achieve commercial success — like Pop Smoke’s “Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon,” his No. 1 album released just months after his tragic death in 2020 — most fail to emulate an artist’s rapid success in life. Fans sometimes see these projects as a cash grab, or pieced together from music that wasn’t released for a reason.
But in many cases, it can be an emotional challenge for any fan who is still grieving. Critically acclaimed LA rapper Icecoldbishop describes himself as a big fan of artists like Miller, but says he often doesn’t listen to posthumous albums much because of the complex emotions associated with them and his own history of loss. He remembers exactly where he was when he learned of Miller’s passing, and says he can’t help but wonder if any late artist would approve of the creative choices made on those LPs.
“When I’m invested in an artist while they’re alive, I feel like I understand their tendencies and how they make music,” says Bishop. “So when they pass by and then hear the albums that come up, I’ll be like, ‘Damn, I wonder if they would have liked that clap. I wonder if they would have liked this beat. I wonder if they would have liked this feature.”
In most cases, the musicians tasked with finishing a posthumous album describe it as less of an act of creative joy and more of a solemn duty. IN an interview with ComplexLil Peep’s friend and producer Smokeasac described emotionally exhausting 10-hour studio sessions when he heard the voice of his late collaborator on loop. “I would get goosebumps, and I literally felt like he was behind my back watching me do this. It was just a crazy process of wanting to be motivated slash being depressed and missing my best friend,” he said.
Jon Brion told Vulture about the rigorous and draining process of finishing Mac Miller“Circles”, one of the rare posthumous albums considered a resounding success. “I worked painfully slowly,” Brion said. “It might sound strange that some individual jobs for each song took longer than it normally would, because I was trying to figure out how to change it as little as possible.”
The reverse has been unsurprisingly common, as late artists are paired with collaborators they never worked with in their lifetime (e.g., Pop Smoke and Dua Lipa on “Demeanor,” Notorious BIG and Korn on “Wake Up”). There was significant controversy surrounding the 2018 release of Lil Peep’s “Falling Down”, which featured XXXTentacion and led to a lengthy public debate over whether Peep would have worked with the problematic artist of his own accord. And yet the appetite was still there, as it is for many leftovers: the track remains Peep’s top single by a wide margin and has over 1.3 billion Spotify streams.
As an artist’s posthumous resume grows, it often becomes clear that raw, unfinished, and inferior demos form the basis of these new releases, and that’s quite evident in the quality of the records. Critics called recent releases from Pop Smoke and XXXTentacion, for example, “insincere” and “random”, and often the deeper someone’s unreleased archive is mined, the weaker the material becomes, with raw and unstructured songs heavily tweaked to make it complete the product. Big names are brought in to fill the space; the optimistic view is that these collaborators were simply showing respect.
The circumstances of each posthumous release are different, and although rare, some success stories do come through. In hip-hop, where mixtapes are often released non-commercially, it is common practice today for artists’ estates to have previously released records cleared for streaming. These reissues come with a bit of a stigma, a reminder of the greatness an artist once had. Miller’s 2014 tape “Faces,” recorded around the same time as “Balloonerism,” launched on DSPs in 2021 and reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200, while Lil Peep’s 2016 “Hellboy” received its first commercial release in 2020 and peaked. at no. 52.
Around the industry, Miller’s “Circles” is considered one of the strongest posthumous releases in both quality and care. It was well advanced by the time of Miller’s passing, and he was already working closely with Brion, which worked to the end product’s advantage. (It’s a similar situation to J Dilla’s “The Shining,” which was finished by his collaborator Karreim Riggins, or Big Pun’s underrated “Yeeeah Baby,” on which Fat Joe served as executive producer.) Brion, an acclaimed producer, composer, and songwriter , was tight-lipped about who he brought to the sessions, telling Vulture that they were musicians he had specifically discussed with Mac, explaining that he didn’t need to finalize thoughts on Miller’s behalf because of where the disc was in its process.
It’s impossible to talk about posthumous releases without considering the artist’s estate itself. For Bishop, if an estate is run by the late musician’s family, there’s a tricky conversation around releasing music to provide the kind of financial support they likely would have received while the artist was alive. Who manages an estate varies greatly, from the mothers of Miller and Peep to a more collaborative approach, as in the case of DMX between his family and the Artist Legacy Group, a company specializing in music estate management. In the vast majority of cases, the music is stronger when the family is involved.
“I understand that a lot of these artists are taking care of their families,” says Bishop. “They leave the estate to these families and they have to figure out how to maintain those estates, figure out how to keep the revenue, but also deal with the labels and try to rip them off the same way they rip the artists.”
“Balloonerism” is, in the troubled line of posthumous releases, a great record, a timestamp for Miller in the middle of the musical period that changed the course of his career. It’s an example of something going right in a world where releases often go wrong, an experimental emblem of an artist willing to try something new at a time when convention was the key to success. That glimpse of greatness is what makes “Balloonerism” — and the best of posthumous releases — worth exploring.
