Legal trouble would continue for him, both due to mistakes and system overreach. My blood was on the ceiling, on the floor,” Meek would later tell writer Ben Detrick of Billboard. “I had a concussion, braids ripped out, stitches. When he was 18, Robert Rahmeek Williams, the youngest of two children, was arrested, then beaten profusely, by two Philadelphia police officers for having an illegal firearm. To see him dancing like that was to see the company he keeps now and how foolish he looked while hanging with the ruling class. Meek wasn’t supposed to be that guy who danced for his white friends he was the lieutenant on one of the most successful Black labels to come out in years. The aforementioned video of Meek Mill bunny hopping around for his rich white friend would have been troubling in a vacuum, but it was even worse seeing how far we’d come from Meek riding around Philadelphia on dirt bikes in the video to “Ima Boss,” the exceptional “Lord Knows” soundtracking a training montage in Creed, or “Dreams And Nightmares (Intro),” which crossed over without compromising an inch of its intensity. He’s a bear: “No love, cry when only babies die/ And when I go, that casket better cost a hundred thou’.” Meek is simple but effective: “They say they gon’ rob me, see me never do shit/ ‘Cause they know that’s the reason they gon’ end up on a news clip.” Ross’ verse – still one of my favorites from that era – is a classic in his canon of middlebrow luxury rap. “Ima Boss,” from the MMG compilation album Self Made Vol 1, was a Jahlil Beats staple – all sirens, no musicality – but it was also a showcase for how excessively successful Ross had become versus how rich Meek was trying to become.
What was undoubtedly true, though, was how good they sounded together. To call Ross a liar in his music was reductive.
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