Mac Miller Appeared in Coffin for ‘Self Care’ Music Video

One of Mac Miller‘s final music videos featured the eerie image of him lying in a coffin, filmed months before his passing on Friday afternoon.

Miller released his final album, Swimming, on Aug. 3. His first single, “Self Care,” came out on July 12 along with a music video. As it opened, Miller was shown lying in a coffin holding a flashlight but otherwise completely surrounded by darkness. He peered around the crude wooden box, noting the nails coming through at various points, before lighting a cigarette and beginning to rap.

The video, directed by Christian Weber, makes a strong allusion to Kill Bill Volume 2, where The Bride (Uma Thurman) punches her way out of a similar coffin with just a flashlight in hand. In his video, Miller escapes in the same way, but first he produces a pocket knife and carves a haunting Latin phrase into the wood.

Miller writes “Momento Mori” above him, then draws a circle around it. The phrase was used heavily in medieval Latin texts, and essentially translates to “remember that you have to die.”

As he works, Miller raps: “I been reading them signs / I been losing my mind.” He also ponders his apparent success contrasted with his highly-publicized mental health and substance abuse issues. He appeared to address his car crash back in May and the subsequent DUI charges.

“It must be nice above the lights / And what a lovely life that I made, yeah / I know that feeling like it’s in my family tree, yeah / That Mercedes drove me crazy, I was speeding / Somebody save me from myself, yeah.”

As Miller emerged from the dirt in the video, the song switched to a whole new beat, and he himself switched from rapping to a kind of distant sing-talking.

“I didn’t know, hey / What I was missing,” he proclaimed. “Now I see a little different / I was think too much, got stuck in oblivion, yeah, yeah… I got all the time in the world, so for now I’m just chilling / Plus I know it’s a beautiful feeling in oblivion, yeah, yeah.”

The video finishes with Miller standing on the pile of dirt he climbed out of, with explosions going off around him and ash raining down everywhere. The whole thing is shot in slow-motion.

Miller was found dead in his home in the San Fernando Valley on Friday afternoon. His official cause of death has yet to be confirmed, though law enforcement sources told TMZ that the leading theory is a drug overdose.

Miller had friends staying with him at the time of his passing, and authorities believe they may have hidden or disposed of most of the drug paraphernalia in the house before calling an ambulance.