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Meek Mill strikes back with Dreamchasers 4

By NIKITA SHTARKMAN | November 3, 2016

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MARK C. AUSTIN/CC-By-Nc-2.0 Rapper Tory Lanez features on Meek Mill’s DC4 with a strong verse on a track titled “Litty Again.”

Meek Mill is coming off a horrific year. He was stuck in jail for months over a parole violation. He started a legitimate fight with Drake over a ghostwriting allegation that he backed up with hard evidence and still lost. He’s beefing with both Game and Beanie Sigel who released some vicious diss tracks (update: Game and Meek have squashed the beef) and the release date of his project was postponed by a stipulation in his probation that prohibited the release of new music.

I assume that these setbacks made the man hungry, because he sounds absolutely starved on Dreamchasers 4 (DC4), the mixtape he released on Oct. 28. This project perfectly fits exactly what Meek needed to make: great delivery over phenomenal beats to make straight slappers.

It comes as no surprise that the intro song on a Meek project was great. Something about Track 1 gets Meek in A1 form. “On the Regular” is one of the many highlights of this project.

The beat is a wild flip of a choral composition, with slapping kick drums bouncing around 808 hits and rattling high hats. Meek’s trademark yelling delivery works perfectly over the epic instrumentation. He starts a little shaky, testing out the beat with some bars, before catching the rhythm and tearing into the verse.

The most interesting song on the album is “Blue Notes.” I would say it’s one of the most unique-sounding hip-hop songs released recently. Producer Butter Beats takes a crooning blues track and flips it into a measured, moody banger.

The guitar riffs poke and prod through Meek’s rapid-fire, hard delivery: “I’m not diseased, but I’m sick of cells,” he spits. The kick is slotted perfectly under the wandering melodies.

Near the back end, “Tony Story 3” serves as a phenomenal cinematic track. Few people consider Meek to be a great lyricist, but he has some impressive storytelling abilities and the Tony Story series is one of his most creative and impressive undertakings.

He writes them as more than rap songs — one could almost consider them lyrical ballads. Shoot outs and gang intrigue are described through a smooth flow and some great sound effects in the back. “Part 4 gon’ be a movie, literally,” Meek yells at the end. I believe him.

Meek’s energy is contagious. On this project, almost all of the features come hungry. Young Thug kills the comical “Offended” hook, and 21 Savage caps it off with his trademark ad lib-heavy flow.

Don Q, a lesser known Brooklyn rapper, drops one of the hottest verses over the eerie, sluggish “Lights Out” beat. The best feature on the project is obviously Tory Lanez, who purrs, purrs and then explodes into a roar like a chain-started lawn mower.

By the middle of the verse, he’s in the zone: “See we both making M’s/They be making memes, I be making millions/I just counted up a Quentin Miller/A Q.M., that’s a quarter milli” is the highlight of his brutal verse.

Considering that he’s capable of spitting verses like this, Tory Lanez’s last project, the mediocre L.U.V., is disappointing.

There are some weak songs on this project too, unfortunately. The misses are slight, but they make the project harder to get through. Lil Uzi’s voice just ruins the hook of “Froze,” especially with his Kidz Bop-inspired “Yah” ad lib in the background.

Nicki Minaj’s verse on the same song is also disappointing, which is surprising since she usually does very well with features. The first part of “You Know” is another song that Meek takes in a strange direction.

Why would he think that anyone wanted to listen to him sing a hook with heavy auto-tune? It makes the song weaker, on top of being generic and uninspired.

Nonetheless, all of the missteps of the project fade out of mind the second the kick pattern of “Outro” bursts in. It starts with a clean verse from the late Lil Snupe (one of Meek’s first proteges), over a beat that grows and grows, before the beating bass bursts in under the choral melody.

Meek speeds up his flow, almost as if he’s frantically, haphazardly riding atop the wall of sound. Then the beat dies, a clock tolls and a new kick pattern emerges. Meek goes in even harder, supported by a classic French chorus. The album fades in glory.

This is Meek’s first public win, and it’s a big one too. He adds another great entry into the Dreamchasers saga, he continues to produce bangers, he flexes his storytelling ability and he even toys with some interesting, unexpected sounds. It is a fun listen and it’s unquestionably better than Drake’s Views.

You can expect to hear tracks from this mixtape blasted full volume in gyms all over the nation and in cars where the bass rattles the glass and makes the rims tremble.

DC4 is the latest mixtape by Meek Mill following his 2015 release, Dreams Worth More Than Money. DC4 is available for purchase on iTunes, as well as Google Play Music and Tidal. Since the release is a mixtape, it’s also available to stream on platforms like Tidal and Spotify.


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