You can look at my face and see that I was surprised. I pulled up and actually seen him getting into an altercation. Mill: I don’t know nothing about him getting jumped on. My story is not a facade.ĪP: Did you have anything to do with Safaree being jumped? … I came up on YouTube rapping since I was 14 years old. They be like ‘Meek Mill can’t rap.’… ‘Somebody wrote Meek Mill raps’. Mill: I’ll look at the internet and see comments like, ‘Meek got Nicki money.’ You can’t know nothing about Meek Mill if you saying something like that. Your freedom can be took.ĪP: Your relationship with Minaj and beef with Drake really put a spotlight on you. Any mistake you make, you’ll be put in prison. I’ve been to jail three times from that one stint of probation. They basically put me on probation for the rest of my life from that point on when I was 18. The cop gave me a 100 charges with trying to kill a cop. They caught me and treated me like I was a killer. The cops are in a dangerous neighborhood thinking everybody else in the neighborhood is dangerous or everybody in the hood is killers. Mill: I was 18 and got beat up by a cop and almost killed by cops. In one video, we got young kids with guns with KKK masks on, basically saying we killing our own.ĪP: What run-ins have you experienced with the law that youngsters can relate to? … I just wanted to give young people in our culture an understanding of what’s going on. A lot of rap isn’t based off reality most of the time. It’s to help them open their eyes and see what they are really dealing with in real reality. Mill: It’s an eye-opener for the young people for my culture.
What do you want people to take away from it? I determine my definition of losing on this album.ĪP: Your single “Young Black America” has a politically-charged tone.
Now I’m in million-dollar studios, making a lot of money being able to feed my family and take them out a crazy environment, still being able to wake up on my own time and do things how I want to do it. I started off in the basement on a karaoke machine.
Those things really meant something to me. Mill: Everybody saying that I’m losing and I lost. He also touches on empowering young black youth, Minaj’s ex-boyfriend Safaree Samuels being jumped during the BET Awards weekend and his aspirations of doing film.ĪP: What compelled you to name your album “Wins and Losses”? While wearing a gold pendant in remembrance of the late rapper and protege Lil Snupe, who was shot dead in 2013, Mill spoke with The Associated Press about his new album “Wins & Losses,” which comes out Friday. Some may think Mill lost in both situations, especially after Drake’s Grammy-nominated diss track “Back to Back.” But the Philadelphia-bred rapper doesn’t view it that way, saying there were other pressing issues in his life he considers as losses - from the death of close friends to a probation violation that landed him three months in house arrest last year. ATLANTA > Meek Mill faced scrutiny during his highly-publicized rap feud with Drake and relationship with former girlfriend Nicki Minaj.