Mac Miller’s posthumous album, Circles, arrived on Friday, and the companion album to 2018’s Swimming is a beautiful devastating bounty of self-reflection. According to a statement in which the album was announced by his family, Mac had been working on Circles with Jon Brion, who completed the album following Mac’s untimely death in September of 2018, “based on his time and conversations” with the late artist. The project has garnered plenty of attention already, and some close listeners have already begun speculating who else might have contributed to the album. After a particularly familiar voice could be heard harmonizing with Mac’s on the track, “I Can See,” some became convinced that Mac’s ex-girlfriend, Ariana Grande, was featured on the song.
Mac and Ariana started dating in 2016 and were together for almost two years before splitting in 2018, months before Mac passed. Ari has since publicly expressed how deeply his death has affected her and how much she misses him. Though Swimming came out only a month or so before Mac’s passing, he was likely working on Circles simultaneously, so it’s possible that Ari recorded some vocals for the latter while they were still together. However, one of Mac’s reps had “no comment” on whether this rumour is true, and Mac is currently the only credited vocalist. Still, there is definitely a female voice on “I Can See” that sounds an awful lot like Ari. She even tweeted something about harmonies the day before Circles dropped.
Give the track a listen and see if you agree.