Meek Mill has been a dream chaser ever since he was a teenager freestyling on his native Philadelphia street corners. After years of dedicated hustling and grinding, Meek reached a widespread level of acclaim for his Dreamchasers mixtapes and become MMG’s top young talent. With a massive amount of hype surrounding his music, his 2012 debut studio album Dreams and Nightmares didn’t quite meet expectations. While providing us with the epic title track intro which is recognized as a classic modern hip-hop moment, it was evident that Meek needed a little more seasoning before he could earn universal praise (releasing a week after good kid, m.A.A.D. city certainly didn’t help his cause). Three years later after another stint in a prison and a new tabloid-worthy relationship with Nicki Minaj, Meek’s second official LP Dreams Worth More Than Money has arrived and there is a noticeable amount of growth from the Philly emcee on the project. While this album doesn’t go without a few missteps, Dreams Worth More Than Money is Meek’s most focused album to date due to his newfound ability of harnessing his bellowing energy and authentically channeling it over majestic production.
As we’ve come to expect from him, Meek sets things off in proper fashion with another striking, haunting intro “Lord Knows” (we see you Tory Lanez) in which the Philly spitter embraces his cockiness with a newfound sense of perspective, resulting in a Berks St./North Philly product meeting Mozart at the opera on wax. It is these types of monumental moments that allow Meek to hold our attention and after he brings Swizz Beatz out of the woodwork on the piano laden “Classic”, we receive another gem in “Jump Out The Face”. Meek’s flow is well tailored for the resounding Metro Boomin/Southside production and, on a slight side note, we are starting to believe that Future can do no wrong. But while the Meek/Metro collaborations prove to be successful (Meek’s energy warrants a Usain Bolt of rap analogy on first single “Check”), there are instances where Meek suffers from a lack of originality. “All Eyes On Me” is catchy but comes across as a blatant radio attempt, Meek can’t quite match Drake’s swagger on the dynamically intriguing single “R.I.C.O.”, and the descriptive lyricism of life in jail can’t excuse the way-too-obviously 2Pac inspired “Ambitionz”. While there is a bonafide sense of hunger and passion throughout DWMTM, it is unfortunate that Meek somewhat suffers from a lack of conceptual creativity.
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