Championships
"Tryna fix the system and the way that they designed it"
-Meek Mill, "What's Free"
If you came here for a numerical review of an album,
you're in the wrong place. See: Principles: Art.
I'm trying to create the future of artistic journalism.
More like the future of journalism, but for now...
Hip-Hop..
As a Native South Jersey resident, Meek Mill has a special place in my heart. His Flamers series made me feel like I really lived that North Philly lifestyle until I took my headphones off & realized who I was.
Told my niggas 'I need you'
Through all the fame you know I stay true
-Meek Mill, "What's Free"
I used to burn all of my high school basketball team's workout and warm-up CDs in the era before The AUX. There was never a playlist without a Meek Mill song. He made it clear that his lane is motivation. This project is in line with his mission.
"Free is when nobody else could tell us what to be
Free is when the TV ain't controllin' what we see"
-Meek Mill, "What's Free"
Though I argue that Meek Mill won the Drake beef, public perception is that Drizzy won. "Wins and Losses," Meek's previous album, felt like an admission of loss, wherein the Drake beef was not acknowledged directly (enough). I imagine his relationship with Nicki affected his instinct to respond with a battle swag. It was peaced up so I will not linger, but I don't think Meek would be able to construct a Championships caliber album without the relative drop off from Wins and Losses + the reasons for said dropoff.
"Is we beefin or rappin I just might pop up wit Drizzy like What's Beef"
-Meek Mill, "What's Free"
CHAMPIONSHIPS
Championships was an expensive album. It's heavily sampled from big records like Love Changes x Mother's Finest (Oodles O' Noodles Babies), Me, Myself, and I x Beyonce (24/7), and Close to You x Richard Evans (What's Free). This is especially impressive since Meek was incarcerated on prison-industrialist nonsense. The crew flipping these records for/with Meek are either very loyal, very diligent, or both. The legal fees involved in his case combined with the bureaucratic cost of clearing samples are hefty price tags. The press associated likely garnered tighter bonds between Meek & the Robert Krafts of the world. I'm not sure most people in Hip-Hop culture know how big of a moment this was, OR if they know the precedent Meek set moving forward. One day, I'll have to get into it.
"Fed investigations, heard they plottin' like I trap
20 mil' in cash, they know I got that off a rap
Maybe it's the Michael Rubins or the Robert Krafts
Or the billionaire from Marcy, and the way they got my back,"
-Meek Mill, "What's Free"
Every rapper has a superpower; MMG has a niche for painting pictures of environments. Sort of like Warhols... but instead of soup cans, it's bars. The pinnacle of this idea, and this album, is track 2, "Trauma," where he delineates his lifestyle and people who grew up like him. In an era with Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer biopics, white serial killers are humanized. However, cameras hardly encourage non-black audiences to sympathize with black drug dealers, killers, addicts... It seems Hip-Hop has assumed this mantle. This record, coupled with his press run, encapsulates his maturity as an artist and an individual.
Uh, my mama used to pray that she'd see me in Yale
It's fucked up she gotta see me in jail
On the visit with Lil Papi, it hurt even though I seemed to be well
They got a smoker with a key to my cell, damn
-Meek Mill, "Trauma"
Whether founded or not, Cardi is being proclaimed as Nicki's adversary by the Hip-hop community. In "On Me," ft Cardi B, Meek jests at Nicki, showing his happiness post-relationship.
I love the move.
This life I'm living be trippin' me out,
'cause I just let a famous bitch spit in my mouth
-Meek Mill, "On Me"
It's petty.
I love petty.
Cardi B is the biggest rising star & arguably the biggest act in all of Hip-Hop.
& she laced that verse.
Heat to your face, clear pores out
I been hard workin' and humble
Believe me, I've heard of the mumble (Look)
I'm just gon' leave it alone (Yeah)
'Cause I would put burners to bundles
-Cardi B, "On Me"
What's Free stopped the world (my world) for about a week. I had it on repeat on my drive to work, daily. Jay-Z had the most bold verse, but Meek has the strongest verse on the record.
IF YOU WANNA DEBATE, WE CAN MAKE THAT HAPPEN.
Locked down in my cell, shackled from ankle to feet
Judge bangin' that gavel turned me to slave from a king
Another day in the bing, I gotta hang from a string
-Meek Mill, "What's Free"
The first five tracks are the strongest, but the rest of the album still slaps. "100 Summers" is the only song that does not belong. It's solid, but it doesn't add a swag that isn't already there. “Coldhearted II” is a reference to his song, "Cold Hearted," feat. Diddy. I was upset that Diddy, Hov, 50... weren't featured. Seems like a missed opportunity for a moment. I don't like "Almost Slipped," but almost everyone I've spoken to loves it. I must be missing it.
Maybe I ain't never almost slip.
I don't believe in revealing the whole album via a review. It's theft of that "unwrapping" feeling. That new video game plastic. That new car smell. I gotta let y'all enjoy it. I will let y'all enjoy because Championships, smells like a,
Phantom 500 thousand, hundred round in a stizzy.
-Meek Mill, “What’s Beef