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#FreeMeekMill: Rapper Meek Mill Exclusive Interview From Prison - Rolling Stone
#FreeMeekMill
Brutally beaten by rogue cops, the jailed rapper has become a cause and, in an exclusive interview from prison, he speaks out and looks ahead
Meek Mill loves dirt bikes the way Mick Fanning loves big waves and Jimmy Chin loves hanging off four-mile-high towers. It's an inconvenient passion that may one day maim or kill him – but if you'd seen as much death as he did by 18, you wouldn't be particular about your poison. "It's the only time I ever feel peace," he says, "kicking wheelies on the freeway, doing 60. You're out there 20 deep, just a brotherhood of dudes. No gang shyt. There's like this . . . freedom you can't get from nothing else."
Meek, the fiercest and most prolific rapper to come out of Philadelphia in two decades – millions of albums sold, multiple high-end beefs provoked, and one very public breakup with Nicki Minaj – picks at a bulbous clump of vending-machine pasta in the visitors' room of the Chester state prison. It's a place of emasculated, tube-lit sadness: men in orange jumpsuits sitting with their loved ones, barred from leaning close enough to touch them. Meek, by his own design, spurns all visits from anyone besides his lawyers and a few friends. "I won't let them come," he says of his family, a huge and intensely close tribe in Philadelphia, about 15 miles east of these walls. "If they see me like this – fukked-up beard, hair all ganked – then it's like I'm really in here. Which I'm not."
Since the day last November when he was sent to prison on parole violations, he's packed off his spirit to roost somewhere else, a disappearing act from the neck up. To rage or steep in sadness would be "letting [that woman] win," meaning the judge, Genece Brinkley, who convicted him 10 years ago on drug and gun counts brought by a disgraced cop. Since then, she's sent him back to prison twice; tacked on 14 years of stifling parole; and repeatedly torched his rap career each time he was poised for mega-stardom. Her latest decree, jailing him two to four years for a sheaf of minor infractions, triggered broad outrage and a suite of investigations, including one by this reporter. For 15 years, per the evidence I've obtained, she's committed acts unbefitting her office; a full accounting can be found below. Perhaps worse, though, say lawyers who have sat before her in court, is her treatment of defendants. "She's a sadist," says a Philadelphia attorney who asked that I not name him for his clients' sake. "She puts long-tail probations on young black men, then jerks them back to jail for small infractions."
But we were talking about dirt bikes, and for just a moment, the light banked on Meek's eyes. From the age of 11, a bike was all he dreamed of, the only thing he'd let himself want. You could buy a Kawi 80 for a thousand bucks, used, and that sum seemed feasible in Philly. The things his neighbors coveted while raised in public housing – rap royalty and Lamborghinis – those you had to live till at least 20 to get, and Meek never thought he'd last that long. "I had 10 friends die when I lived in North Philly, and probably another six or seven on the South side," he says. "I would literally open the door and smell the air outside. Yup, smells like murder today."
His father, Rob Parker, was killed during a stickup when Meek was five years old. (Meek's real name is Robert Williams. His nom de rap derives from his middle name, Rihmeek.) Rob was one of 14 kids born to Beulah Parker; almost all of them went on to live working-class lives. The exception was Rob, "the real-life Omar – he robbed drug dealers for a living," says Ron Parker, his brother. "That's how he died, trying to take off a gangster. But the guy caught him slipping and shot him down." Rob was 31 when he passed away; his killer was never identified by cops. Meek was a quiet child who tunneled inside himself after his father died. "For 10 years, I barely got a word out that boy. He'd stay in his room drawing cartoons," says Kathy Williams, his mother. "Then he turned 15 and those hormones hit him hard. He was out there on the corner, spitting fire."
Actually, Meek was 14 when he started carving kids up on the corner of 24th and Berks: That was the spot where come-up rappers cut their teeth in North Philly. "I lost my first battle and walked away crying, saying, 'I'll be back strong, motherfukkers,' " Meek remembers. If he ever lost again, you won't see it on YouTube – in clip after clip, he hands older kids their heads with a coldness that's frankly reptilian. By the time he was 17, he was fronting a crew known as the Bloodhoundz. They played a local spot called Blue Horizon, packing the house full on Friday nights. "Dudes would walk up on me and shake my hand: 'Yo, your shyt is flamin' in the streets,' " he says. The boy who, at nine, compiled a rap thesaurus – "He'd fill up all these notebooks with words that rhymed: cat/hat, moon/tune," says his sister, Nasheema Williams – dropped out of high school in his junior year to spend his waking hours crafting songs. "We knew he'd break it big – he was our LeBron," says his cousin Rasson Parker.
Philly is no springboard for aspiring MCs. You can count on five fingers the rappers who've made it big – and one of them was named Will Smith. But Meek's skill set would have launched him from the wrong side of Pluto. He had, besides maniacal breath control and an insult comic's ear for brutal burns, the kind of want-to you can't teach to lesser artists. "He had so many setbacks that it made you think," says Conah Howard, who's helped manage Meek since 2008. "Drops his mixtape – goes to jail. Almost signs with T.I. – T.I. goes in. It was almost like, 'shyt ain't meant to be.' " Around 2010, Meek was spotted by Rick Ross while doing a college show. "Rick's like, 'Who is this kid making the crowd crazy?' " says Howard. Ross added a verse to Meek's single "Rosé Red," then signed him to his label, Maybach Music. Within a year, Meek put out four gold singles. He was a trap rapper toasting the usual tropes – big cars, body counts, Saturnalian sex – but he used them as shiny paper to gift-wrap his story, folding in truth between the brags:
When my dreams started to crumble, nikkas deserted/Empty courtroom when the judge read my verdict
In an age when hip-hop was hugging the shore, Meek was a kid who'd wade in deep, splashing his pain on the page. No one confused him for Kendrick, but he was working it out, finding his subject as he grew. He dropped three hit albums in less than five years and probably would have been a fixture on Top Five lists – if his path hadn't crossed with Brinkley's.
#FreeMeekMill
Brutally beaten by rogue cops, the jailed rapper has become a cause and, in an exclusive interview from prison, he speaks out and looks ahead
Meek Mill loves dirt bikes the way Mick Fanning loves big waves and Jimmy Chin loves hanging off four-mile-high towers. It's an inconvenient passion that may one day maim or kill him – but if you'd seen as much death as he did by 18, you wouldn't be particular about your poison. "It's the only time I ever feel peace," he says, "kicking wheelies on the freeway, doing 60. You're out there 20 deep, just a brotherhood of dudes. No gang shyt. There's like this . . . freedom you can't get from nothing else."
Meek, the fiercest and most prolific rapper to come out of Philadelphia in two decades – millions of albums sold, multiple high-end beefs provoked, and one very public breakup with Nicki Minaj – picks at a bulbous clump of vending-machine pasta in the visitors' room of the Chester state prison. It's a place of emasculated, tube-lit sadness: men in orange jumpsuits sitting with their loved ones, barred from leaning close enough to touch them. Meek, by his own design, spurns all visits from anyone besides his lawyers and a few friends. "I won't let them come," he says of his family, a huge and intensely close tribe in Philadelphia, about 15 miles east of these walls. "If they see me like this – fukked-up beard, hair all ganked – then it's like I'm really in here. Which I'm not."
Since the day last November when he was sent to prison on parole violations, he's packed off his spirit to roost somewhere else, a disappearing act from the neck up. To rage or steep in sadness would be "letting [that woman] win," meaning the judge, Genece Brinkley, who convicted him 10 years ago on drug and gun counts brought by a disgraced cop. Since then, she's sent him back to prison twice; tacked on 14 years of stifling parole; and repeatedly torched his rap career each time he was poised for mega-stardom. Her latest decree, jailing him two to four years for a sheaf of minor infractions, triggered broad outrage and a suite of investigations, including one by this reporter. For 15 years, per the evidence I've obtained, she's committed acts unbefitting her office; a full accounting can be found below. Perhaps worse, though, say lawyers who have sat before her in court, is her treatment of defendants. "She's a sadist," says a Philadelphia attorney who asked that I not name him for his clients' sake. "She puts long-tail probations on young black men, then jerks them back to jail for small infractions."
But we were talking about dirt bikes, and for just a moment, the light banked on Meek's eyes. From the age of 11, a bike was all he dreamed of, the only thing he'd let himself want. You could buy a Kawi 80 for a thousand bucks, used, and that sum seemed feasible in Philly. The things his neighbors coveted while raised in public housing – rap royalty and Lamborghinis – those you had to live till at least 20 to get, and Meek never thought he'd last that long. "I had 10 friends die when I lived in North Philly, and probably another six or seven on the South side," he says. "I would literally open the door and smell the air outside. Yup, smells like murder today."
His father, Rob Parker, was killed during a stickup when Meek was five years old. (Meek's real name is Robert Williams. His nom de rap derives from his middle name, Rihmeek.) Rob was one of 14 kids born to Beulah Parker; almost all of them went on to live working-class lives. The exception was Rob, "the real-life Omar – he robbed drug dealers for a living," says Ron Parker, his brother. "That's how he died, trying to take off a gangster. But the guy caught him slipping and shot him down." Rob was 31 when he passed away; his killer was never identified by cops. Meek was a quiet child who tunneled inside himself after his father died. "For 10 years, I barely got a word out that boy. He'd stay in his room drawing cartoons," says Kathy Williams, his mother. "Then he turned 15 and those hormones hit him hard. He was out there on the corner, spitting fire."
Actually, Meek was 14 when he started carving kids up on the corner of 24th and Berks: That was the spot where come-up rappers cut their teeth in North Philly. "I lost my first battle and walked away crying, saying, 'I'll be back strong, motherfukkers,' " Meek remembers. If he ever lost again, you won't see it on YouTube – in clip after clip, he hands older kids their heads with a coldness that's frankly reptilian. By the time he was 17, he was fronting a crew known as the Bloodhoundz. They played a local spot called Blue Horizon, packing the house full on Friday nights. "Dudes would walk up on me and shake my hand: 'Yo, your shyt is flamin' in the streets,' " he says. The boy who, at nine, compiled a rap thesaurus – "He'd fill up all these notebooks with words that rhymed: cat/hat, moon/tune," says his sister, Nasheema Williams – dropped out of high school in his junior year to spend his waking hours crafting songs. "We knew he'd break it big – he was our LeBron," says his cousin Rasson Parker.
Philly is no springboard for aspiring MCs. You can count on five fingers the rappers who've made it big – and one of them was named Will Smith. But Meek's skill set would have launched him from the wrong side of Pluto. He had, besides maniacal breath control and an insult comic's ear for brutal burns, the kind of want-to you can't teach to lesser artists. "He had so many setbacks that it made you think," says Conah Howard, who's helped manage Meek since 2008. "Drops his mixtape – goes to jail. Almost signs with T.I. – T.I. goes in. It was almost like, 'shyt ain't meant to be.' " Around 2010, Meek was spotted by Rick Ross while doing a college show. "Rick's like, 'Who is this kid making the crowd crazy?' " says Howard. Ross added a verse to Meek's single "Rosé Red," then signed him to his label, Maybach Music. Within a year, Meek put out four gold singles. He was a trap rapper toasting the usual tropes – big cars, body counts, Saturnalian sex – but he used them as shiny paper to gift-wrap his story, folding in truth between the brags:
When my dreams started to crumble, nikkas deserted/Empty courtroom when the judge read my verdict
In an age when hip-hop was hugging the shore, Meek was a kid who'd wade in deep, splashing his pain on the page. No one confused him for Kendrick, but he was working it out, finding his subject as he grew. He dropped three hit albums in less than five years and probably would have been a fixture on Top Five lists – if his path hadn't crossed with Brinkley's.
the more I read abt Meek the more I hate the Drake faggit stans.
