Meek Mill | Photo by Rachel Del Sordo for WXPN | racheldelsordophotography.com
Watch a Noisey Raps doc on Philly’s Meek Mill
Philly MC Meek Mill takes a lot of shit and talks a lot of shit, whether he’s beefing with his hip-hop peers over ghostwriting and freestyling, getting ridiculed by certain segments of the music press or vowing to never get into digital rumbles ever again. Something that’s important to keep into perspective, though. Dude can rap, dude has a vision and a message, and he is driven to bring those things to his fans.
Which is to say, don’t get distracted by the headlines. Meek’s 2015 feud with Drake overshadowed his fantastic second commercial LP, Dreams Worth More Than Money. Legal issues that barred Meek from tour held back his 2012 LP Dreams and Nightmares. Lest you forget that both those records had intensely impactful moments, I’d suggest you listen to the fierce “Ambitionz” from the former or the title track of the latter. Or watching the below documentary short care of the folks at VICE offshoot Noisey Music.
The video starts with Meek talking about how he wants to motivate and inspire people, and from there he reflects on his own story — how he started from the bottom (as the Drake lyric goes) and achieved what he’s achieved. We see him as a young battle rapper as well as a charismatic MC in front of arena-size crowds. In one clip, he’s on a jet heading from a gig to another gig, holding the fat stack of his cash payout. “This is motivation, man,” Meek tells the camera. “We come from nothing. This is motivation.”
A good portion of the doc also focus on Meek’s love of dirt bike riding, something that’s been featured in a number of his music videos over the years. “Dirt bike is the only thing that can bring young black people age 24 to 18, it’s the only thing that can bring that community together without violence.” He also reflects very sweetly on his longtime girlfriend Nicki Minaj.
Check out the video below, and let’s keep our collective fingers crossed that Meek’s Dreamchasers 4 surfaces soon.