Transcription
[Music] For complex news, it's 360 with Speedy Mormon. I'm Him, and right now we are at the Motorcycle Mall in New Jersey, and we've got a special one today. We've waited a very, very long time for this one; it is the Chasers 18th Street North Philly. Yeah, Nick Miller is in the building. [__] Seven, how are you?
Ain't none chillin' from uh, you know, make him say, and in my bag to to this, you know, we've got bikes with your artwork on it, and you know, you've got five studio albums at this point. It's Expensive Pain; that is the name of this new album. What does it mean to have seen this kind of transition from those days, make them say it, to like, right? Yeah, even make them say, really? I got 10, I got five studio, billion-dollar company. But before billion-dollar company, I was like, I had items out in the street that led up to me like getting a deal. So you know, of course, it's uh, uh, great to obtain your dreams and be like chasing down your dreams and catching up to them. So you know, this is today; this is the reality of like 100 nights, 100 days of grinding and chasing with you chasing. We still got a long way to go.
Yeah, I mean, at that point you were still directing people to meekmillflamers.com, and now you've obviously are directing people to your own ownership things, you know what I'm saying? Things that you will really have the leadership over. And so, you know, just to see that transition of yourself from, you know, an artist from Philly to like a businessman and a mogul of sorts, how does that feel?
Yeah, I feel great. If so, I have to make money and be like, be able to do business that Kurt's gonna feel good won't come from the world of; I come from poverty. We don't come from the world of like learning how to do business and handle money and manage millions. So you know, it's a task, but you know, it comes along with the success and things like that kind of so business. I would say like another job on a top-day success that you know we got to learn how to do along the way, but of course, it feels great to be able to, you know, level up.
Yeah, does it feel normal yet? Because I think back to like old interviews, you're like, sometimes I look in the mirror and I'm like, is this really me? I think there was a line on, I think Cold Hearted One, you're like, sometimes I look in the mirror and ask McMill, is this your car? Like, you have those moments still where you're like, oh [__], like I really did this?
Yeah, I had them almost every day right now. I just bought all my young boys dirt bikes uh, in a store right now. Nobody never bought me a dirt bike; I always wanted a dirt bike my whole life, and if I did end up obtaining their bike, it was like a 1980. So being able to buy my son and his friends and brothers and bikes is like, you know, it means a lot to me. I still, I still appreciate that flying jet, being able to take care of my mom, my sister, now appreciate that, hanging with billionaires; I appreciate that, and just being from North Philly, where where I came from, to be able to obtain this type of [__], I appreciate it all every day. I think about it; that's special.
So Expensive Pain, that's the name of the album. Yeah, and it's, it's deep, right? Because if you really get into like the theme and the meaning behind the theme, it's like, to me, it has a lot to do with sacrifice, and I've heard you explain it a bunch of times, but you know, Expensive Pain being like, you know what, sometimes you're out hustling and trying to secure your future, and bad things might happen. So how do you explain what something like Expensive Pain is without just being so obvious? What's that deeper meaning of Expensive Pain?
Uh, there's so many ways; I never really think about it, but Expensive Pain is just like, my son had a football game today; I had to do a complex interview. So instead of getting my son not missing his game, I got him to come be a part of the complex interview, you know what I mean? Really, I would have canceled Complex's interview, go to my son's football game. He just started playing basket—I mean football, probably what, this year, probably two weeks ago. So you know, it could have been like a small Expensive Pain in the middle of that. So you know, it cost my son's football game to come here to be with us because I know they love bikes, him and his friends, today here with me. So that's just a reason, uh, I mean, that's the example. Uh, being in the studio every day at eight o'clock in the morning is Expensive Pain. You got a girlfriend in the house; most girls ain't really trying to wait for nobody to come in the house eight o'clock in the morning, and you out every night, all day, sacrificing the future family uh, to make it to millionaire status, to uh, overcome poverty, you know I mean? That's just expensive in itself; it's a lot. It could be anything; it's like we call John and Philly Jones; it could be anything; it means anything; it could be a pretty girl; it could be a brick; it could be a gun; it could be money; it could be anything you want it to be; kind of Expensive Pain could be anything you want it to be like in your own way. So my main Expensive Pain is just being a sacrifice for my whole family generation and having to work non-stop and help my family overcome poverty kind of, and I live expensive through that at the same time.
Yeah, uh, my Expensive Pain could be just making money off of my pain. Yeah, I make millions off for just expressing my emotions, uh, the things I went through. So that's really my Expensive Pain, too. And you saw that Expensive Thoughts, Expensive Thoughts.
Yeah, you said that Grand Fias is the one who kind of gave you—I think you said it on Million Dollars Worth of Game—yeah, Fias is the one that gave you the inspiration behind naming it. Yeah, my album was called Best Summer Ever, but the summer was kind of getting over with, kind of what was taking long, and being as though with the label, I wanted to drop a certain date; they said it wasn't enough time and pushed it back towards October, so that title wouldn't really make sense anymore anyway. So I was thinking about changing my title when Brent came in the studio was working on a song; he was uh, telling me like he had heard me uh, playing blue notes for me and Uzi, and here I said the [__], this Expensive Pain. After the song played was like, that name is crazy, right? Did that just sound crazy, Expensive Pain? And then you know, I had took that in, uh, turned it to the album title right there, and we rocked with it from there on out. All right. Yeah, that's one of the chats I got the bread fries to help me come up with my uh, my album name.
Yeah, that's one of the changes that you made, but you also said a million dollars worth of game, back down to the last minute, you were changing things. You said you had changed your album like three times in the last two weeks, start leading up to it. What did it look like before it was the Expensive Pain iteration that we see?
Yeah, it's always hot, but uh, Cardo, Cardo, a producer I work with, he came in the studio like, you always got serious music, like I think this one should be a little bit more funny, and I did want a fun album this time instead of like my last album; I got was free traumatized, uh, championships, the song and [__] like that; it's like a pretty much serious CD. This one I wanted to be more fun, kind of like for, for my vibe and what I'm getting into this year, this morning, leading into 2022. Do you have songs on it for you that maybe mean a lot more than some of the other ones? You have favorites because our first listen, the three standouts, I mean, it's, I show you, tweet, you know, asking people what theirs is, and everybody has different favors, but for me, the one is Expensive Pain; the title track is really it for me. Yeah, and then Cohorted, of course, that trilogy, and then Hot Bag is crazy. Yeah, do you have maybe one or two that really mean a little extra to you?
Yeah, I got the songs I go back and play; I don't think they mean extra, but the ones I go back and play is like uh, 100 Miles an Hour, uh, Love Train, Love Money, Be; I play all the time, and I'm talking about what I personally play in the car. So you don't listen to none of the ones that I said I like? Yeah, I do, but like if I'm in a house, probably like the [__], I'm playing all day, like as long as you playing like the real [__], uh, yeah, Expensive Pain, Cool Hard, throughout, listen to that late-night type [__] chilling, but when I'm outside about to work out, I'm listening to Hate on Me Now, 100 Miles an Hour with Beer. If I'm messing with a girl right now, I'm banging the [__] with uh, okay with Kalani. It depends, kind of, if I'm on some like good vibe type [__] off, I'm on rap [__], I'm banging Tweaking with Me and Voice. It's different type of vibes, but yeah, dude shows my name; they're like on the way here; they don't want to play back and forth in the car. All right. Yeah, but all of them like my [__] next week is going to be a different group of songs.
That's what I was going to ask you, so you said you kind of teased it that there's an extendo pack coming, that's you; is that a deluxe version? Is it—I'm changing the game; we ain't calling it the deluxe; I don't even know where the deluxe name came from; I don't know what a deluxe says. We're going to call it a Stand Down; we're going to make it longer, and we're gonna basically update the playlist. Okay. Yeah, it's updated to probably 32 shots or something like that, 32. Now, I ain't going to say 32, but that's where the extendo is in the hood, so you know that's how my far we might take it. And are you just going to slap those new records onto this project here? Yeah, and it's still going to be called the Expensive Pain; it's just going to be an extra Expensive Pain Stand Down version. Yeah, I'll be like doing like a whole new thing, a whole new vibe. Yeah, people usually do deluxes, two, three records; this is gonna be more than two, three records because like, and music, like I got money, I make a lot of money, I make business moves, but I got a point to prove like from here to 22022; people don't really, really be [__] with me like that, so I'm gonna keep like charging the doors every three, four months on some rapping [__], probably until it's the next three years until I feel like rapping in the morning. I got like three, four more years left, really.
Yeah, three, four more years left of music, and that's it; that's it. I've been rapping since I was 23. Oh, I know we're talking; we're gonna talk about that in a minute, but really just three, four more years? Yeah, yeah, I can't be performing forever; I probably got two, three more years. I think these are the last years I'm going hard with music, and I'm gonna go pursue like other stuff too at the same time; I'll still make music, but going, working on the album six months, being away from my family that long, I give up. Let the young [__] come up next and see who like has just moved me out of the way. A lot of people gonna be upset to hear that.
Yeah, I'd still be rap if you know I mean, you might wanna buy NFT or some [__] like that; we still got that [__] going on, but I ain't gonna make that my priority of like my day job, right? Music all day kind of. Okay. Yeah, right. Got like four or five more albums, man. Okay, you talking about this Extender Pack, just from a fan perspective, there's been a couple records I've been waiting to hear. Yeah, one of them is a joint that you teased mad long ago, and it's the joint with Pop Smoke. Yeah, that's the piece; I think it was called Blue Fashion. Yeah, is there a chance that we'll see that on this? Yeah, that might be on there definitely; I'm trying to figure out; I'm talking with somebody else from Brooklyn on there because like two songs that fit in and one, so I'm trying to figure the song all the way out, but most likely that's going on the Extendo Pack. Okay. Yeah, there was another song that you teased on the IG story, which I imagine won't be, but is it—Oh, no, it was a Welcome to the Party freestyle of some sort; you did it on the story a long time ago; is that—Yeah, I did do it, but everybody started remixing; I didn't feel like it was no need; I feel like I was gonna follow like I was following everybody else, so we ain't getting that one. Yeah, the world might never see that; I don't know. Yeah, probably not; I don't sound like Jonah as an NFT.
Let's talk about the album cover for Expensive Pain; this was done by a Black woman artist. Yeah, but for whatever reason, in the past few hours, at this point, there's been some social outrage about people upset about, maybe if you want to set the record straight, why is it important for you to uplift a Black woman designer?
Yeah, uh, Nina, Nina, the [__], I don't think people really understand like in the internet, in the social world, we don't really give a [__] about like the, the fake social world. She a Black artist; she a Black woman; she been expressing herself through art uh, when they make movies about racism uh, on the news when they don't talk about little girls getting killed in that neighborhood, well give a [__] that y'all not worrying about us or helping us, so don't give a [__] when we doing something the way we do it, you know what I mean? Because Nina always, she does have a real definition behind her art; she's uh, a great artist, and these people don't worry about our community when we're dying and going to jail and then trapped inside of poverty. So don't speak on us when you think you feel some type of way; you see some [__] you don't like; speak up when you see a little girl get killed in that neighborhood, like we do, come help us out a little bit, and then have an opinionated opinion. I seen a white guy saying now like, what happened? What'd he say when George Floyd got killed? I know he was outraged about a bus and uh, a Payton that was on, but what did he say when he seen a white man choke a Black man out for nine minutes? Did he make the same type of video, or did he want to just zero in on that? No. Do I think it's appropriate to have naked women on buses? No, I do not think that's appropriate; that can be changed, but Nina is a great woman; she's an African-American artist that represents Black women, and a lot of Black women support her, uh, me; I just joined the art game, so you know, I'm learning about art, and I respected her vision and what she brought to the table when I asked her to paint it, and that's what we rock with, like you know, social media is like not real in my neighborhood; people are really dying every day in Philadelphia, little girls, little boys; the topic of a wrap of a bus is not a real thing that's going on in the places we come from; rap music, that [__] came from the hood; it came from poverty. If you want to speak on it, make sure you're speaking on both sides; make sure you're paying attention; make sure you have empathy for the world you talking about. I seen a guy saying that was demonic or some [__]; make sure you understand who Nina is when I came out with my album cover; of course, a lot of my fans don't understand a Nina Chanel album, but that was the whole kicker to introduce like people that come from our world into the art world. Yeah, but you know, everybody can have their opinion, but I'm not too fine on that social fake [__] that fit-casting people; should I support all Black people? Ain't no rapper, ain't no Black rapper, uh, brown rapper, probably even white, if you stand for what I stand for, or Asian, I'm not never canceling you if I don't feel like you're intentionally trying to hurt people or trying to like uh, cause drama because I come from a place of drama and hurt where people do that intentionally, and you know, the people who make mistakes and [__] like that, we don't judge them; I won't try to cancel them or take their job away; that's like some loser type mentality; some losers on the internet; me and you know that [__] bullied people for a long time, like Corey Laureate watched corollary say; I don't, I see it on the other day; I'm like, yo, don't ever say no [__] like that again; we've been [__] on the internet and losers that talk [__] on the internet for probably 10 years, me myself; they never make me want to quit; I see a comment about myself and want to go extra harder, so like that world is like imaginary to me; you'll see a thousand people on the internet today; I would go viral on it, and then that number one training; let's walk into the arena right now, ten minutes later; I'm gonna show you how they clap and scream for Meek Mill; that [__] is a facade, and they use it to actually contain artisan control artists, damn that. So basically [__] you, if you feel some type of way, you don't want to understand uh, what we offer to the two because uh, social media and platforms they like real sensitive of things that don't really matter in the world; in my neighborhood, we got 600 murders; there's poverty going on; please help us if you uh, want to help change the world, and no, I don't think, I think it could have been a better way that my marketing team could have handled that.
Very well said, bro. Yeah, very well said, and that's only the truth; the truth might hurt you a little bit, but now, but it's real [__] 2012, man; we tired of living in all that fake internet [__]; it's like two worlds; they did it to me with Drake; they did it to me with uh, what else they do with; they just made it even before my album just came out; they said so ninety thousand; I don't know if they said that's good or bad, but if we walk outside right now, you're gonna hear that [__] booming from Maine to Spain in the streets.
So let me ask you though, when you do have an album like this, and it comes out, and it debuts at like a number three on the Billboard, yeah, do you care at all, or does it mean absolutely nothing?
Yeah, me, I rather them take me off Billboard. You got to think about like, what is the purpose of me being on Billboard? If Jay-Z talked about him believing Billboard, he'd been in the game for 30 years; why should I put myself in a position to be where they say allegedly something is being manipulated, and then I'm putting my, my brand on a list that's being manipulated? If I'm not manipulating that list, why should I even put myself in that to make anybody look over top of me? Not saying anyone is manipulating that list, but Billboard is not a part of my marketing scheme; it's not a part of my talent; it's not a part of my art. Actually, before I was ever on Billboard, I was on Billboard, probably make him say, before I got a record deal, and maybe Billboard probably like just off of Philly; I was excited about that because I didn't know what Billboard mean, but even right now, like they said I got the number one, number three album; I got the number one album out here; who the [__] is Billboard? Y'all might be rating this [__] wrong, you heard? Yeah, so like, if you ask me, you could really like, I've never really been a numbers—
Person like, I don't know how many number one albums I got. I know I got some, but you could kind of remove me from that and let people just judge me off of my talent. I want to make you—I want to be like your therapist when you hear my music. I want you to have fun; I want you to party. I don't want you to look at it, see if I'm number one, number two, number three, cause all that is is basically on Billboard. They say I'm number three. I got the number three—ah, my—I just made a company 300 million. That's it. You're here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We need to know—like, I want you guys to judge me off of my impact, right, and not just the money I'm making off of my talent, not off of a list where you can only buy my [__] through a certain rev—uh, certain avenues. And basically, my fans don't really have credit cards like that. My fans are in jail. My main—well, my main fan base is in jail, and it comes from poverty, and my—and my music kind of spread it beyond that. So like, I try not to really indulge my—my world into—like, into that. Yeah, but I still want to do business and make money because it is a business that we're in. That's like—Hope said something like, "We used to look at billboards, but we was young; now we look at billboards like, 'Issue dumb.'" Cause basically, in my world, to me, it's a marketing scheme. You're able to rape me in a certain way. I don't feel like I'm number three. Why is it number three? Let's go. I feel like everybody—every half of the prison system had to buy my album when it comes out. Do I know what the numbers is [__]? No, I don't know what the numbers is. You asked me, "Did 10,000 people in Philadelphia—from Philadelphia to L.A.—buy my—" I would tell you, yeah, you heard me. It's just like, I don't understand that system, and I didn't come from that system, and I kind of got wrapped up in that system through signing with a major company, right? The new way I'm talking about this—like, you could just remove me from all that [__] and let the people judge me off for who I am, because it kind of controls my brand further than—uh, myself. No, I don't want to be a nobody. This is a competition. I've been doing this [__] for a long time. It's like the Grammys. I don't wanna—if I ain't gonna win, and I—and I ain't gonna get credited the proper way. Yeah, like, if the person that's doing the Grammys ain't gonna analyze my album the right way, I don't even want you here. I don't even want you writing my [__]. You don't know it. You can't listen to "Cool Heart" at three and feel the feeling I get. You can't listen to—what's the other song you say? "Expensive"—yeah—and get that feeling that them kids getting on the east, west, south, and north of America. I don't even want you to be able to control my marketing—another way to make middle brands look. You could just leave me in the dark underground. Yeah, I'm a millionaire now, and they got the internet button where you could just sit that [__] on people's doorstep, and we know how to do it well.
You said you're a millionaire now, but you weren't always. So let's go back a bit to the beginning. Yeah, uh, and I think a big reason why a lot of the fans really resonate with you is because we were—we—and—and the fans at large were able to watch you progress in real time. Like, your videos and your journey have been very well documented on YouTube. So yeah, you know, do you ever go back and watch your old stuff, of when you're on the block, you know, rapping with the Braves? Like, do you ever go and just search that up to bring you back to that essence?
Yeah, I was watching it last night with some girl. I was watching—um, just smoking weed, just watching old videos. I mean, when I was 18, 19, just to get the feel of how I felt that day and get like my hunger—like I might have had six dollars in my pocket. That they are 25. I could remember from what I had on that day. All that footage was like, "Damn, I was broke." You need to turn up and had that hunger that you had right here, and that's what kind of I was doing for like "Expensive Pain." I got a lot of new flus and like some of the songs that sound like I'm hungry because I went back into the mode of like where I was at before I got on. Yeah, that's real—to be able to watch your [__], because when you document it, you can say, "Okay, I remember this at this time. Maybe this girl was—I was [__] with this girl. I was trying to do this to get this bag or whatever." The rap music is so funny—like they block this based off cap, or this artist coming from that. You ain't got to check. You can see me from every stage of my life. You can see me as a little teeny bopper with a 380. Uh, you can see me in prison at 25, or you can see me at the table at a reform boy. You can see me—uh—dropping a—a fire ass album from day one. I would say from age 14 to the rest of my life, you probably could see pieces of it on camera on YouTube. Yeah, yeah. So that's kind of cool to look at—to be able to like rely on your life and be able to see what you went through.
Yeah. Once upon a time, you were a part of the Lights Out Click LLC, your first ever group. What can you tell me about that time? What a lot of people don't know about that? What was that time like?
Oh yeah, Lifestyle Click was probably the foundation of me—like, really taking rap serious. I had like two or three friends that was like—uh, one of my friends knew how to do like the karaoke machine—like where you put like tape on top of the—and on top of it—like a cassette tape, and then you put it in, rewind it all the way to the start, press record and play. We plugged the microphone and it started recording. Every day we should go to my mom's basement and start cooking up—like, recording on tapes, and then we formed a group, and that kind of like gave me the spark—like the super—the real ambition to really chase it. And then years later—probably four or five years later—I—I started hanging outside Philly. I ended up creating another group with my family—like my friends, my family—called the Bloodhounds. So it was like—that was the—that was the next activation point that kept me serious about music, too.
When I listened back to a song like "I'm a Boss," yeah, I hear—which you still perform, and I love when you perform it, but you have a line on there you say, "I'm only 23, I'm the [__] now." Look at me now. You're 34.
Yeah. Does it ever brush your head sometimes? You think, "Yo, I've been doing this over a decade now," like—
I'm—yeah. I've said that last night, too, when we were watching outside tank—that all that time went by too quick. That's 11 years right now. 34 right now, and I was 23 when I made that. It actually made me proud to even be able to say like, "I've been in the music game this long," from the age of 23 to—I mean, 23 to 34. And 23 was like "I'm a Boss" intro. Yeah, around this time we on—uh—"Coldhearted 3"—uh, what's that? When you like expected me 100 miles an hour, and you know we're in the—we're in the middle of like, you know, I'm more from the flow. I'm learning; I'm getting better at the same time. Of course, you ain't gonna have the same gritty meat you had in 20—2012, but you know, I got another side of me that people—ain't here yet. Basically, I've been delivering through "Expensive Pain," in my next album I'm gonna drop. Yeah, I like that. On all my bosses, of course, Rick Ross. And at that time, that's kind of like when you guys joined forces, and I remember hearing the story vaguely about you wanted to make a good impression on him, so you want to rent in a car or something like that. What—what happened? What was the story behind that?
Yeah, I was going to Ross's house, and I always seen Ross with like all the fire [__]—all the fire cars and [__] like that. And in business, it's just a smart thing not to go in just looking like you need it. Like, I didn't want to—I had—uh, I had a go—I had a—a white gold AP or stainless steel bust down 80 pit. It was like 35,000. I had a chain. It wasn't really like that. I don't know how much it cost, but I'm like, "Man, let me rent this Phantom right here so I could pull up and we talking business, so you can respect me a little bit more as a—as a businessman." As soon as I rented that [__], the battery died at the mall. I was getting the jump in the Phantom in Bal Harbour parking lot. That [__] turned out wrong. It backfired. Yeah. I ended up still getting the Bentley out of the rental man, but—and ain't—I wanted to pull up in the Phantom like—and I may make him see like young [__] out here moving for real. Is it—do you think it's important sometimes to make that good first impression if it means investing in yourself a little more for that image?
Yeah. All right. Yeah, I don't think you gotta go rent no Phantom to do that. You don't even have to fraud to do that. You could just make your best impression that you're capable of. Like, you don't have to go get nothing that like you don't actually got. Me, that was just my plan. That was a freestyle. I was on my way to his house and Ryan passed—running places—and like, "Pull over right here. Let me try this [__] real quick." It wasn't a part of my plan, but I just think you should always make your best impression on someone that's like coming to a job interview. Hot—I don't want you to be on my account, and if I meet you, you high—I don't want you to be my driver if I meet you, you ha—my engineer. You understand? Yeah, it's better if you make your—your best impression if you're trying to like actually score something for sure. Now that's when it was a—like, we see Ross, we see you. Yeah, and now these days, you've obviously grown. You've signed your own deals at Roc Nation, your own imprint. What is the status now? Are you still with MMG, or are you not a part of it?
I'm signed to MMG, Atlantic, okay. Roc Nation ain't my label. The Black Nation is—uh, management company right now—like works with me basically. Yeah, and me and Roc—Roc Nation got like a label deal on the side—a side of all that, right? So it's MMG, Atlantic, and then it's me and Roc Nation with a label deal on the side that's separate from that. Gotcha. Okay. Is there—is everything all good with you and Ross, because there was rumors on the internet about some birthday parties, somebody get let in or something like that?
When you type my name, you might see 90 things. I got—I got seven babies. I got beef with Ross on the internet. I got beef with all types of—with academics. That [__] is not my world, and it's like—like kind of something like—it's hard for me to cater to and keep up to because I gotta see it every day. I try to remove it from my life because it ain't real, and I don't really speak about it—like, in a real way. Yeah, especially when it comes to like interviews, but like debate—it's Meek Mill. We asked Meek Mill as him and Ross beefing. I don't even want that type of narrative on me and the people that I made millions with and came up with—kind of—and companies and blogs. They do that through like interviews. That ain't the way. I try not to even speak on that world. I say no to that kind of—if you type my name and you're watching this interview right now, I—I actually did that with a girl yesterday. How we got to the older videos. You type my name and they say everything under the sun. You can click on it if you want—if you choose to—but me, I ain't clicking on those [__]. That's made up by nobody, and I don't actually know—like, the—the foundation to us.
No, it's kind of a full circle moment because obviously, we're—we're sitting here amongst a whole bunch of bikes and—and stuff. The bikes is what was the thing that got you sent back to jail?
Yeah, unjustly. Um, but now you've kind of taken it and are trying to change that stigma about it. What is it about bikes that maybe mean so much to you? What—what is it about bike life that like resonates with me?
Bike life, with me, resonates with me and brings my community together. Now, when we were stuck on the corner and we're getting shot down, the cops locking it up, nobody wasn't worrying about what was doing. They didn't give a [__]—like, "Die, go to jail." We obtained dirt bikes, and you know, that was like our freedom—how we get away from the corner, get away from a bad environment. Once we did that—Ryan—dirt bikes is not breaking the law. Once we did that, they created a narrative that it was like a—a crime—kind of like how they did skateboarding in the 90s. And it's something that we fight for. You know, in our neighborhood, people get killed all day, people get robbed, people go to jail. The good kids that ain't got nothing to do are the people who are like expanding their mind. We ride dirt bikes and bring us together. Like, if you watch blogs, you see Asian kids, white, black—uh, Spanish—all in one neighborhood. Asian kids in our neighborhood—he could have a brand new bike from here, costs 23,000. If he with us in the hood and he on his bike, don't we doing like—nobody touches bikes. Like it's like—uh, it's a different thing. Some white kids come from the suburbs down to our hood. When they ride with the pack, they know nobody ain't gonna take their bike. It's like a—a different type of brotherhood, and it's the thing that like we fight for. Whoever loves bikes—I don't know if you see—sometimes I just go ride in Brooklyn. We see it—my security is gonna get lost, but I know that my bike—like brotherhood—gonna hold [__] down to a certain extent. I'm not just gonna—never go to Brooklyn or stand on the corner. Tom—go to the studio time—like I'm saying—like the hoods are broken, too. I'm never just gonna go there to chill, but on a bike, you know, I'm touched down. I'll touch down on hell on the bike if I could, and I mean—because it's like what we love to do and what we live and fight for.
Yeah. And now obviously, you're—you know, Roc family—you're a part of Roc Nation. Shout out to Hope, shout out to Jay Brown. What is it like to be a part of that conglomerate—like the biggest, right?
Yeah—uh, hovering them—I always looked up the whole—and [__] my whole life—the whole Rockefeller type imprint. So to just be in that is like a dream in itself. Like, I never get around it—like—well, well never fan. Now we from Philly. We don't fan out. We don't do too much—oh, well play—like groupie games. But in my head, I always kind of keep—like, the—the—the feel of like, "Yeah, you with Jay," and still knowing—like, "I'm the [__] too," and respecting him as a—as a man, but still knowing in my heart that like I admired somebody like him in his blueprint and everything he went through to get to where yet. So to be a part of that is like—it's—it's like a dream—kind of. That's—that's what we should dream like back in the hood. Yeah, I'm running with Jay, and I'm—and now—like, we running with Jay, and I'm doing business that's so fire. Yeah. And—and I remember hearing you rap on songs about wanting to—or—or not stopping until you get the whole record, and then—yeah—and then you got it, you know, on "What's Free"—how did that record come together? Like, how did you and—and Hov even get on that track?
"What's Free" was the record. I think I was giving it to Ross, and then I ended up getting a verse from Hov, for—because I had something to hold before, too. So I just asked Ross to get it back and just put Hot Rod and Hov on at the same time.
Did you know that Hov was gonna send it back, or was it kind of a surprise?
Yeah, I knew he—I knew he probably was going to do it if he had the beat, but I ain't no winner if he was going to make the timing of the album to do it and stuff like that. I don't really do—like, the relationship—like that. I just do it. Yo, if you can, you can't—bust it down, because we do a lot of other stuff together, too.
All right. I heard a story about—James Harden. He said that it was like 2:30 in the morning one night, and you, Baby, and Dirk pulled up on his crib. He had practice at like 7:30 in the morning that day. He wanted to break at night with y'all. Do you remember these studio sessions? What—what is—what is the night like that like?
Yeah, I remember that like yesterday because he had to go to practice like nine in the morning. Stayed up till like six, seven, went to sleep for like an hour, went straight to practice, and then came back and took his neck after like a full day—like—oh, all day doing whatever we was doing. All-nighter from two a.m. to six a.m. in the studio, practice at eight, and then probably take a two, three hour—like—four to seven, and then right back in the mix. And at that point, you, Baby, and Dirk were all cooking up, and there's—it's been said that—you know, Dirk and Baby, they wound up releasing a project together called "Voice of the Heroes." It's been said that you were supposed to be a part of that project. Is that true?
Yeah, I was supposed to, but just like my business—the way I ran my business is different. When it comes down to the business—like, we really make it match up all on our side, and I think we all agree that it was just better for them to do it at the same time because Baby and Dirk is like around the same age, breaking, and they on fire at the same time. But it definitely was a—a—a cook-up in the beginning—like, I still got 20 more songs with Baby and Dirk in the cut. One of them might be on a Stüssy pack—only one out of 20. Yeah, I'm not going to flood my whole city with Baby and they're already got them on sharing locations, and now they extend their pack. It may be a possibility you got them on it, and then a group project. I would love to have them on there 30 times if I could, but you know, albums don't really work like that with critics.
Yeah, yeah. There's a couple of things that I just wanted to ask you about throughout your career. They're kind of just sporadic, but there's a line on one of my favorite Meek songs ever—"1942 Flows"—you say, "I gave my mama 10,000 at least a thousand times." Yeah, is that you just talking hot [__] on a—on a verse, or have you literally given your mom—
Yeah, I gave my mom more than a millionaire. It's a million dollars, ain't it?
Yeah, yeah. I give my mom more than a million dollars now. My mom got black cards to see unlimited—like—
So that's what I was gonna say, too. I remember you tweeted a picture of your mom's welfare card, and then under it was an Amex black card. Yeah. What does it mean to be able to do something like that? I take those pictures for example to show—
People like, all right? You go from you, my mom just had an access card. Now my mother got a black card. This is like a sign of motivation. You could be the one that changed your mother's life, change your life, Phil. That was one of the points that let me know [__] real when I was giving my mom a black card. And you know, I, I never—she had bad credit her whole life. I had bad credit my whole life. My mom put bills in my name since I was six. So to even like, to see my mom and be able to live better and not have to uh, work off our back at the age, yet right now, it's like an accomplishment.
Yeah, and we heard somebody like Nip say, you know, he saw his grandmother on the jet. You build your grandmother a house. Yeah, you know, taking your family out the hood. Why is it important to be able to do things like that? I just think that's the priority. What do you do it for? Like, a lot of people come, get rich, make money, and get into this game and start taking care of women and and people that they met along the way that they were sacrificing for. My sacrifice was always for like my mom, my grandma, my like my immediate family that played the part and my support, uh, uh, that loved me, shout out to me from a kid up to I was able to film for myself. So my grandma was one of them people. So, you know, before I spend a million dollars on anybody else, let's get Grandma on a million-dollar house. My mom straight already. I'm working on my sister, everything she needs to do right now. So it's like really like making sure, uh, my dad died when I was younger. It's my grandma I'm son, so I just made sure I handle everything that my dad was supposed to do, kind of make sure I stand on it.
I want to talk about this quick tweet about Squid Game. Yeah, Squid Game is the most popular show on Netflix right now. They say it's going to be the most popular show Netflix has ever had. And you kind of likened it to what life is like in the hood. Yeah, clarify that. What, what do you mean by that? And basically saying like if they're taking people and telling them like, uh, you're in debt, if you get out of debt, you can get these billions of dollars. In the hood, we are all in debt. Everybody is in the hood is in debt. Where people like, you see when, uh, when things got so to survival mode, when people would even push each other off the glass to make the next person fall to survive, that's kind of like a crab in a barrel mentality. That's the mentality that I came out of that we come from in the hood where everybody is at, and I wouldn't say everybody, but 90, 95% of the people at a desperate, a desperate state where they're trying to survive. So when you're in survival mode in a desperate state, you don't really think about the decisions you make and how you make them. You know, you just kick into survival mode.
Yeah, and that movie is like a perfect example of humans kicking into survival mode. If you take Asian people and put black people in that video, that movie, that'd be a whole different movie, man, talked about right now. Yeah, and it'd be super controversial, way more. I know it's probably controversial already, but just substitute those Asian people with black people and you will see poverty placed inside of a movie basically.
Right. My last question for you, it's been Dream Chasers since the beginning. I imagine that the dreams that you're chasing now are different than the dreams that you were chasing, yeah, when you first came up with it. What dreams are you chasing now? When Meek Mill is looking at his vision board, what, what dreams are on there for me, bro? Me, I'm trying to obtain another level of money because I got next-level bills now. But me, my dreams is like really getting my life under control while I'm making money so I could, uh, get back my family the right way because we've been on the road for 10 years, like sacrificing, making money. That's a part of my dreams. My next level, uh, being able to have my family at hand at any given time, and that comes with like making more money, kind of, uh, in the NFT space. Maybe there's some aspirations there, in the art space. Uh, the Meek Mill movie though, my life movie is like a big deal to me too. Okay, I'm gonna start writing that tonight. I was, I was telling tonight, yeah, and I said I was having a conversation all day. I talked to a few directors and I just said today, I'm gonna start writing it tonight and finish. I wrote it a few times when I was in prison, locked in, but I, I can't find out where I left them at. So tonight, I'm just like really taking my time and start.
All right, so life after music, you got some obviously next-level money, some more art stuff, the movie, yeah, and just a next level of Meek Mill. Yeah, it ain't gonna be a normal route that like y'all see rappers take. It's gonna be a different route. I don't know what it's gonna be, how I'm gonna do it. I'm still in the process of like the tail end of it, but yeah. All right, well, Meek, me, I appreciate you. Thank you for taking the time. Expensive Paint is out now. Make sure y'all go tap in and stream that. Oh, I appreciate it. [Music]