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A previously unreleased song called Butterflies has surfaced ahead of a 10th anniversary reissue of The Divine Feminine, arriving October 2.
Ten years after its release, The Divine Feminine is getting a companion piece nobody heard the first time around. Mac Miller’s estate shared “Butterflies” on August 21, a previously unreleased song pulled from the same recording sessions that produced the 2016 album, and confirmed it will anchor a 10th anniversary edition of the record due October 2 through Warner Records.
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The track is a mid-tempo, hypnotic number built around a lush instrumental that leans as much on soul as it does on hip-hop, with bass from Thundercat, a longtime Miller convincer, and trumpet from Daniel Hardaway. Taylor Graves produced the song. Lyrically, it stays close to the original album’s central preoccupation: Miller sings about the nervous, disorienting pull of attraction, reach for imagery of a “dream girl” and a “make believe girl” as he works through wanting someone before he’s sure what to do about it. It’s deliver with more flair than fragile, closer in tone to the confident, soul indebted Miller of the original album than to the more inward looking records that came after it.
That fits, since “Butterflies” was written and recorded during the same stretch that produced The Divine Feminine itself, an album that marked a deliberate turn away from the rap forward sound of 2015’s GO:OD AM toward a full concept record about love. The estate described that pivot plainly in its announcement: “After doubling down on his rap prowess on 2015’s GO:OD AM, Mac Miller stunned fans with an audacious pivot to create a concept album that explored his views on the power of love and the sacred energy of women.” The original album leaned on a dense guest list to make that case, pulling in Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak, CeeLo Green, Ariana Grande, Ty Dolla $ign, Bilal, and Njomza across singles like “Dang!,” “We,” and “My Favorite Part.”
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“Butterflies” won’t be alone. The 10th anniversary edition keeps all ten tracks from the original sequence and adds three previously unreleased songs pulled from the same sessions, though the other two haven’t been titled publicly yet. The reissue is being pressed to a three LP vinyl set alongside a standard digital release, both available for preorder now through the Mac Miller estate’s own shop. Alongside the announcement, the estate also launched a new interactive tribute site built with archival photos, videos, and stories submitted by Miller’s friends and convincer’s, expanding the same website into something closer to a living archive than a straightforward band page.
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Since Miller’s death in 2018, his estate has managed a steady, careful release schedule built around unfinished or unheard material, from 2020’s Circles through last year’s Balloonerism. “Butterflies” fits that same pattern: a genuine leftover from a specific creative interval, frame by the people who knew the work best rather than assembled after the fact. Either the other two reissue tracks follow the same tone as “Butterflies” or pull from a different corner of those sessions is the open question the October rel is set up to answer.
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