Here’s a photo of Mac Miller and I in early 2010. He was still in highschool. So was I. It was before he released K.I.D.S. Before he had any tattoos. It was his first interview. It was mine too. He was in New York City for a few days. Before he left to fly home I met him at his hotel near the airport. I was incredibly nervous driving there. So nervous that, even though his manager Quinten instructed me to come up to the room when I arrived, I waited in the lobby for him to tell me again. Eventually Q came down. I asked Q why they were in NYC. Someone flew them out, but their parents didn’t know the trip was paid for, so they gave them travel money. They were excited about that. We were, literally, all just kids pretending that we knew what we were doing. I walked into the hotel room and greeted Mac. He was very energetic. I don’t think either of us could believe that the other wanted to do the interview. We filmed the interview. It felt like the greatest thing I had ever done in my life. Then we all piled in my mom’s car to get food. We did some other things, too, then I dropped him back off at the hotel.That summer Mac released K.I.D.S. and everything changed forever for him. We kept in touch over the years. I did another interview with him a few years later. There's a certain unexplainable closeness you feel with an artist when you’re with them that early. I grew with him over the years, from a distance. His artistic arc defied all odds of who he was when he started. His successes gave me inspiration. His growth showed me I could grow too. The story of him detoxing at Rick Rubin’s house showed me that it was possible for my friends to do the same.With the release of Swimming there was chatter about him possibly coming over to my house to film a podcast episode. I thought it was a stretch. But last night I decided to send him a plea on Twitter, anyway. That closeness I felt never left. It never will.An entire generation of music fans grew up on Mac Miller. A lot of those fans grew with him along the way. The gift he gave the world can never be quantified. Thank you so much Mac for everything you did for me, even though you never knew you did half of it.