Fans have started to gather at Frick Park’s Blue Slide playground in Pittsburgh for Mac Miller’s memorial. Ahead of Tuesday’s event (September 11), the slide was given a fresh coat of blue paint as flowers were sprinkled all over the area.
According to Nightfall Records CEO Brandon McCaslin — one of the organizers of the event — the memorial will focus on Miller’s music and attempt to shed light on addiction and mental health.
Miller died of a suspected drug overdose on Friday (September 7).
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“Malcom’s music will be playing chronologically from start to his last album,” McCaslin told Tribe Live. “We will be having different people who touched his life telling stories of how he affected them.
“We are working with nonprofits to raise awareness about addiction and mental health. We’ll then do a candle ceremony And close by thanking everybody for coming, the city for how incredibly helpful they’ve been.”
The memorial officially begins at 5 p.m. ET.
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The event’s Facebook page has nearly 9,000 people interested in attending and roughly 2,800 who said they’re going.
Check out the YouTube live stream above and photos from Blue Slide Park below. [apple_news_ad type=”any”]
[This article has been updated. The original version of this article was published on September 8, 2018 and can be found below.]
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Although fans of Mac Miller have already started celebrating the late musician’s life at Pittsburgh’s Blue Slide Park, an official memorial is planned for Tuesday (September 11).
On the Facebook event page, the organizers of the event explained their intention behind the memorial.
“We would like to bring the city together in full force for this legendary icon,” the description reads. “Mac deserves to be sent off with an evening of celebrating his life, discussing his struggles, and remembering his stories; most importantly for his iconic work that brought joy into the lives of everybody who listened.”
Miller’s debut studio album, 2011’s Blue Slide Park,was named after the Pittsburgh park where he spent a lot of his time growing up. In a 2013 interview, he admitted the criticism the project received was one of the reasons he started using promethazine, which is also known as lean.
“I love lean; it’s great,” he said at the time. “I was not happy and I was on lean very heavy … I was so fucked up all the time it was bad. My friends couldn’t even look at me the same. I was lost.
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“A lot of the reviews were more on me as a person. To be honest, that was even worse. You’re 19, you’re so excited to put out your first album, you put it out—and no one has any respect for you or for what you did.”
Miller died on Friday (September 7) of a suspected drug overdose at his home in the San Fernando Valley. While conducting their investigation, police reportedly said the house was wiped clean of any drug paraphernalia.
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An official toxicology report is pending. [apple_news_ad type=”any”]
