On a typical September night, the centerpiece of the blue slide playground at Frick Park is full of kids lining up to take a ride.
Just like Mac Miller used to do.
On Tuesday, the newly painted blue slide in Squirrel Hill was surrounded by thousands of fans mostly in their teens and 20s mourning the Pittsburgh rap star who died Friday at his home in the Studio City of Los Angeles of an apparent drug overdose at age 26.
Throughout the evening, the Point Breeze rapper’s music, which normally wouldn’t be appropriate subject matter for the family park, provided the soundtrack. On the more popular tunes, fans sang along. As it grew dark and the candles came out, it became more like one of the parties Allderdice High School kids would have back in the woods.
“I think if he were to see this right now, he would have on his signature grin, just smiling so big, so touched and so tickled at all these people coming out,” said Nomi Leasure, his girlfriend through high school and while he made his name as an international rap star.
Fans light candles and sing to Rapper Mac Miller’s music during a vigil held after the 26-year-old’s death on Friday. @PGVisuals @PittsburghPG #pittsburgh #MacMiller #vigil pic.twitter.com/cVvkrIBdbj
— Jessie Wardarski (@JKayWardarski) September 12, 2018
The only speaker was his grandmother, who said, “He loves you all, he loves Pittsburgh and everything you’ve done for him.”
Throughout the playground area, there were different pockets of people doing their thing: most hanging by the DJ, some making art or music of their own, some collecting the 1,852 signatures on a petition to name the playground after him.
Camerin “Camo” Nesbit drew a crowd near the baseball field with a stunning large-scale black and white spray-painted portrait of the artist, whose real name was Malcolm McCormick.
“I just wanted to show Mac’s artistic side,” he said. “It was from a photo I really liked. I thought it showed a lot of personality and originality, so I just ran with it.”
He went to Schenley High School and then Mercyhurst University and didn’t know the rapper but said, “Just growing up on his music, I was inspired by someone who didn’t grow up too far from me and did a lot for the city.”
He plans to hook up with Miller’s team and put the portrait somewhere in Point Breeze where people can sign it.
Artist Camerin Camo Nesbit of Homewood spray paints a mural of rapper Mac Miller during a vigil following Miller’s death Friday. @PGVisuals @PittsburghPG #MacMiller pic.twitter.com/mytG06q8m5
— Jessie Wardarski (@JKayWardarski) September 11, 2018
Eli Burstein, on the other hand, might be Miller’s oldest friend.
“We were in a playpen together,” the 26-year-old said, “because our mothers were best friends.”
He flew in from Denver for the vigil.
“I’ve seen for the past nine years my childhood friend who I grew up trading Pokémon cards with and playing Nintendo with grow into this. This is the most devastating but also most beautiful and final moment of shock at how famous he got. I knew Malcolm really well but I didn’t know Mac Miller, really, and this is like a collision of both.”
Mac Miller's grandmother speaks at a vigil held for him at Blue Slide Park in Squirrel Hill Sept. 11, 2018. "He loves you all, he loves Pittsburgh and everything you have done for him." The 26-year-old passed away on Friday. @PGVisuals @PittsburghPG https://t.co/wiVd6mftkq pic.twitter.com/OPCxtOyZWQ
— Jessie Wardarski (@JKayWardarski) September 12, 2018
Another friend, Donald “Red” Davis, 26, met Miller at Allderdice High through freestyle rapping.
Mr. Davis said he was rapping at a lunch table one day in ninth grade when Miller approached and introduced himself as Easy Mac, the name Miller went by in high school.
The two started rapping together every day during lunch.
“I was the one doing the beats on the lunch table,” Mr. Davis said. “Me and Mac used to write our lyrics in notebooks and put them in our back pocket.”
Mr. Davis remembered that Miller would walk up to anyone and throw down a rap challenge, even people from different neighborhoods. Because of that openness, Mr. Davis said, he feels like Miller brought people together.
“He would talk to anybody,” Mr. Davis said. “He was so down to earth. He was all about having fun.”
Andrea Grimm, of the North Side, holds a candle during a vigil for rapper #MacMiller at Blue Slide Park. pic.twitter.com/h0K519RRCL
— Matt Freed (@mattfreedpghpg) September 12, 2018
But he was also extremely talented.
Lyneel Brimage, another of Miller's Allderdice classmates, said he could tell even in high school that Miller was going to make it big.
“Before he made it, he had that swag about him,” Mr. Brimage said. “You knew he was going to be a star.”
On the last day of school at Allderdice in 2010, Katerina Lisitsa asked Miller to be in a photo with her because she knew he was going to be famous, she said.
“He was really cool about it,” Ms. Lisitsa said. “He struck a pose.”
She still has the photo of Miller and her standing back to back, arms crossed, outside of Allderdice's front door.
Not everyone at the vigil knew Miller personally. But the shock of his death reverberated through his fan base.
“Pittsburgh lost a friend, a son, a really good talent,” said Katey O'Donnell, 22, of McKees Rocks, who's been a Miller fan for years.
Graham Abbott, a sophomore at Allderdice, said students there still take pride in the fact that Miller was an alum.
“Me and my friends, a lot of us listened to his music,” he said. “We couldn't believe [he died].”
The vigil was presented by Brandon McCaslin, of the fledgling Nightfall Records, who was a fan of the rapper and had two occasions to meet him.
“Mac Miller has left a legacy in our city that is irreplaceable. His breakout with Wiz Khalifa in the music industry paved the way for the entire Pittsburgh music scene. He became a beacon of light for our city and continued to shine even when he outgrew it. We’d like to make sure that light never dims.”
“Taking about Pittsburgh and repping Pittsburgh and always throwing it back to he city was just something that he always did because he knew what it meant to be from a place like this and how special it is,” Ms. Leasure said.
“It was a place that always stayed close to his heart. This is the perfect place for something like this to be happening. So many people associated this place with him and he associated so much of his childhood and his life here with this park. It’s great for his fans to have this place to come and remember him.”
When the police asked the crowd to disperse, they chanted “4-1-2!” and “One More Song!” They were granted “2009,” the solemn closing track of his new album “Swimming.” Once it ended, the crowd all went silent and raised their candles for two or three minutes.
Someone broke the silence, yelling, “We love you, Mac!”
First Published: September 12, 2018, 2:04 a.m.
