Ty Dolla $ign recently stopped by the NPR office to play a Tiny Desk set, where he performed a moving tribute to his late friend and rapper, Mac Miller.
Accompanied by Miller’s frequent collaborators Thundercat and Justus West, Ty launched into a solemn performance of ‘Cinderella’, his 2016 collab with Miller, which appeared on the latter’s penultimate album ‘The Divine Feminine’. For the cover, Miller’s original verses were replaced by a breathtaking guitar solo from West as well as Ty’s smooth humming.
Ty’s performance comes exactly a year after Miller graced the Tiny Desk stage with cuts from his final studio full-length, ‘Swimming’. Before he dived into the song, Ty told the audience that he was “honoured” to pay homage to his late friend. He also later revealed that he had brought along the same band who appeared alongside Miller during his own performance.
“This for the bro Mac right here, man. It’s been a year since that last show, so I’m honoured to be able to do this with my boys,” Ty said. Once the performance ended, the group embraced one another for support. Watch it below.
Miller died in September last year aged 26 of “mixed drug toxicity”, with fentanyl, cocaine, and alcohol found in his system at the time of his death. The death was certified as an accidental overdose. The rapper has made several posthumous appearances since his tragic passing, including on ‘Time’ by the Free Nationals and ‘That’s Life’, a song by 88-Keys and Sia. Last November, Spotify released a live performance session of Miller covering Billy Preston’s ‘Nothing From Nothing’.
Earlier this year, filmmaker C.J. Wallis announced that he was planning to develop a documentary about Miller but was told to “hold off” the project by the late rapper’s estate. In a Twitter statement, Wallis said that “the last thing we’d want is to negatively impact anyone involved”.