Thundercat opens up about grief, sobriety, and his fifth album ‘Distracted,’ featuring a posthumous Mac Miller verse and guests like A$AP Rocky and Lil Yachty
Stephen Lee Bruner has spent the better part of a decade becoming comfortable with the name Thundercat. “Sometimes it still feels awkward saying it myself,” he admits, “where I’m like, ‘Oh, hi, I’m Thundercat.'” The moniker started as a childhood obsession with the Marvel Comics franchise, something his mother clocked as bordering on mania. It became a stage persona with a nudge from Erykah Badu, who referred to him by that name constantly and, in his words, “was definitely very key and elemental in my development as an artist. Maybe my biggest supporter.” On April 3, 2026, exactly six years to the date of his Grammy-winning fourth album It Is What It Is, Thundercat releases Distracted via Brainfeeder. The fifth studio album arrives carrying more emotional freight than anything he has put his name on before.
The weight comes primarily from one place. Mac Miller, who died in September 2018 from an accidental overdose, remains one of the most present absences in Thundercat’s creative life. Distracted includes “She Knows Too Much,” a previously unheard posthumous collaboration with Miller, released with the blessing of his family. Talking about it, Thundercat visibly struggles. “I’ve been working through it,” he says. “I’m grateful that the family allowed me to use the song. It’s been complicated, but I guess it always was. With Mac, I would see myself. I’d see my friend. But something about this one. It was just really painful, and I had to work through it in front of everybody. The world felt that one.”
Sobriety, Distraction, and a New Creative Partnership
Miller’s death did not just wound Thundercat. It changed him structurally. Shortly after, he quit drinking, adopted a vegan diet, and lost more than 100 pounds. “Mac’s death was an extremely traumatic experience for me,” he says. “It was a combination of things that really brought about that level of change. I’ve gotten better at processing it as time heals things. But that was definitely a very key element in my sobriety.”
The album’s title is not accidental. Thundercat says the noise of modern life, social media, ads, the relentless grind, was also fueling his drinking. “I think that was one of the reasons why I would drink so much,” he explains. “It helped me focus, even though that sounds absolutely abhorrent and absolutely opposite. The reality was I was using it as a coping mechanism. There’s too much going on. I did anything to quiet the noise.” Distracted was built as both a diagnosis and a remedy, co-produced with Greg Kurstin, the Grammy-winning architect behind records for Adele, Beyoncé, and Beck, with additional production from Flying Lotus, Kenny Beats, and The Lemon Twigs. The 15-track effort features A$AP Rocky, Lil Yachty, Tame Impala, Channel Tres, and Willow alongside the posthumous Miller verse.
From the Bass to the Mic, and the Road Ahead
It was Flying Lotus who first pushed Thundercat to step out from behind the instrument and sing. He remembers the transition as disorienting. “That was weird as hell to me,” he admits. “It tickled me a bit, but it was also very, very, very weird. It was like, ‘That’s me, lol.’ Like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is who I am, I guess, or something.'” That voice, equal parts absurdist humor and genuine emotional exposure, is now among the most distinctive in contemporary music. On Distracted, it carries heartbreak, self-deprecation, and hard-won perspective across soaring harmonies and jazz-infused funk.
A$AP Rocky’s appearance connects back to an early Coachella story Thundercat tells with obvious affection, a night of wasted decisions, speaker-hugging, and the beginning of a real friendship. The SNL moment, Thundercat on bass alongside a shirtless Danny Elfman and Rocky in pink curlers, felt like a cultural punchline with genuine substance behind it. “Danny Elfman will definitely pop you a fair one,” he says.
I aspire to be that ripped when I’m of said age”
Thundercat’s international tour launched March 5, running through London, Milan, Paris, Vienna, and Warsaw before wrapping in Japan on May 22. Distracted is out April 3 on Brainfeeder.
