One of rap’s prodigal sons has finally returned: Meek Mill. Released from jail in December after serving a bid for violating his probation, last week he dropped a couple freestyles, if only to remind people what’s been missing from rap the last six months. His well-honed performance traits were on full display: assertive barks, unwavering dedication to lyricism and unchecked raw-to-the-nerve passion. Meek tasked "Ice Cream Freestyle" to cover plenty ground of days lost and he handled it with little fuss:
The revolution shall be televised
The year is all about us, fuck the other side
Got to be killed on camera for us to come alive
Well shit we dead already from all of this homicide
In my cell hanging from rope
When you get less time for rape than selling dope
When you get the same time for dope than you do a murder
Innocent until proven guilty…guilty the verdict
In case one thought the rap community was being too quiet during the second half of 2014 let those bars loop a few times, then listen on as Meek condemns America’s love of prisons and fear of black men and offers advice to the recently arrested Bobby Shmurda. A major label rapper is often, by contract, in the position to be pushing radio singles—Meek's jail stint abruptly ended the promotional campaign for his second album—but that isn’t, and hasn’t been, where he excels. Meek’s best as a bull horn for the injustices of black America, and its disproportionate population who’ve experienced the law flip on them. A strong, decade-long career on the mic provides many fine examples that express these grievances: longstanding frustration at the legal system pepper his freestyle over Drake’s "The Ride"; anguish over the man that killed his father triggers the album deep cut "Traumatized" and the refusal to accept seeing another black boy fall into a casket drives "Lil Nigga Snupe", where he rhymes:
Where the love at? Where the love at?
I’ll give up all this money to get lil cuz back
Before my nigga go starving like where the grub at?
Give up the fame, start over again and get my buzz back
The track was devoted to the teenaged Louisiana rapper Lil Snupe, who died in 2013, and was a collaborator. It remains hard to watch old videos of them side-by-side, as Meek cannot contain his beaming pride towards the young rapper, who unleashed his grief and worry with every rhyme he spoke. Though Snupe was more technical and raw, his skills connected him to Meek, who spent years working to turn his own unpolished talent into real success.
This year bodes well for Philly’s finest, especially if he can hitch back onto the promotion circuit, thought these new freestyles show that Meek remains the rapper whose tragedies will be exorcised on record for the world to see and compel us to take notice. The emotions are raw and hard to swallow; they should be. Chance the Rapper, Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West could all drop albums this year, but collective ears should in this moment be to the one that's the loudest in the room. Meek converses with a world that gleefully tosses and forgets black lives; yet he has not tired of creating portraits for those who’d otherwise go unheard.