Meek, Jay, Ross, Free Or Not To Be

Keeping this all the way real, 3 lit fires for What’s Free because, frankly, Ross verse is kind of weak.  It’s already been stated by too many outlets that Jay’s verse may have been the verse of 2018. In it, he makes a few statements to distance himself from his ‘brother’ Kanye West. Kanye has been having all sorts of challenges lately, but also has pushed this discussion on what’s free… literally what is Freedom?

From the political realm, which Kanye has ‘now’ stepped away from, are black people voting freely?

What’s Free and are we free, if we are all voting for the same party; taking it a step further, are we all free if we are all wearing the same clothes and listening to the same artists? Is freedom going along with the crowd, or is it unplugging from it? These are real questions all of us should take the time to ask ourselves, including whether or not Kanye was ‘free’ with all the political outbursts he created. Perhaps those were just made to promote the series of albums he released in the summer, including Pusha T’s Daytona 500 – another contender for ‘verse of the year’ … as well as a contender for all time rap beef history.

Back to Jay’s verse …. on What’s Free

 In the land of the free, where the blacks enslaved
Three-fifths of a man, I believe’s the phrase
I’m 50% of D’USSÉ and it’s debt free (Yeah)
100% of Ace of Spades, worth half a B (Uh)
Roc Nation, half of that, that’s my piece
Hunnid percent of TIDAL to bust it up with my Gs, uh
Since most of my niggas won’t ever work together
You run a check up but they never give you leverage
No red hat, don’t Michael and Prince me and ‘Ye
They separate you when you got Michael and Prince’s DNA, uh
I ain’t one of these house niggas you bought
My house like a resort, my house bigger than yours
My spou- (Come on, man)
My route better, of course
We started without food in our mouth
They gave us pork and pig intestines
Shit you discarded that we ingested, we made the project a wave
You came back, reinvested and gentrified it
Took niggas’ sense of pride, now how that’s free?
And them people stole the soul and hit niggas with 360s, huh

… Truly incredible, and there’s more. Thing is, hard to give a song ‘more’ than 3 of anything, when the focus isn’t really ‘the artist’. No slight to Meek Mill who actually does sound better than usual. Perhaps going through some real situations in life have really matured him. One of our contributors, Duche said to me, “Now that Meek isn’t screaming I can take Meek.” …

Meek Mill wasn’t done right by our legal system, and what else is new? …… So it’s great to see him use that experience and bring it directly to the youth, who may still be listening to his voice. Recently Meek was on CNN speaking more to the realities that young black men and women face in America. Check that interview out when you get a chance.  He speaks on Kanye West, Criminal Justice ‘reform’, and his new album, which this song, What’s Free is featured on.

The ‘What’s Beef’ beat from Notorious is a great touch, to a song I’m sure will be in the rotation of many people’s playlists, for many years to come.