Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for TIDAL.
Meek Mill just dropped his newest album, Championships, and the project is packed with interesting samples.
The album kicks off with the Papamitrou produced “Intro,” which samples Phil Collins‘ 1981 track “In The Air Tonight.”
Meek is known for his memorable intros—especially 2012’s “Dreams and Nightmares,” which has become a club staple thanks in part to its dramatic mid-song switch up. Similarly, Collins' “In The Air Tonight” features a celebrated drum break towards the end, which Meek’s track utilizes midway through his new song. “In The Air Tonight” has previously been sampled by many other rappers, including Nas on “One Mic,” DMX on “I Can Feel It,” and 2Pac on “Staring Through My Rearview.”
The very next track on Meek’s album, “Trauma,” also features a sample that should be familiar to hip-hop fans. Produced by Don Cannon, “Trauma” opens with a sample of Barclay James Harvest’s 1977 song “Taking Me Higher.”
Once Meek’s track kicks off, the beat essentially turns into a more uptempo version of Mobb Deep’s 2001 song “Get Away,” which also sampled “Taking Me Higher.”
“Trauma” is just one of multiple songs that take cues from classic hip-hop. The Rick Ross and JAY-Z assisted “What’s Free” samples The Notorious B.I.G.’s “What’s Beef?” The track is produced by Tarik Azzouz and StreetRunner, and by the sound of it, they changed the drums from the original Biggie song.
Meek also interpolates Biggie’s original hook, however he flips the focus of the lines from beef to social justice, a recurring theme on his new project:
What’s free?
Free is when nobody else could tell us what to be
Free is when the TV ain’t controllin' what we see
Told my niggas, “I need you”
Through all the fame, you know I stay true
Pray my niggas stay free
Rappers like Kanye West and Pusha-T have previously sampled Biggie’s “What’s Beef,” while Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli used its concept to rap about a variety of social issues.
Meek’s “What’s Free” ends with JAY-Z’s verse, and the next track, “Respect The Game,” samples Lonnie Liston Smith’s 1983 song “A Garden of Peace”—the same song Hov sampled for his 1996 Reasonable Doubt cut “Dead Presidents II.”
However, Meek and Jay aren’t the only ones to take inspiration from “A Garden of Peace.” The song was also sampled by Rick Ross on “Usual Suspects,” Jeezy on “Leave You Alone,” and Mary J. Blige on “Take Me As I Am.”
Perhaps the most high-profile sample on the album comes with “24/7,” which features Ella Mai and samples Beyoncé’s 2003 song “Me, Myself and I.”
The Beyoncé cut appears on her debut solo album Dangerously in Love and peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Although she’s never worked with Meek on a song, Beyoncé did yell “Free Meek” on DJ Khaled’s “Top Off” back when Meek was incarcerated.
Along with Beyoncé, there’s another high profile R&B singer that Meek samples. On album closer “Cold Hearted II” Meek samples The Weeknd’s “I Was Never There.” The track is produced by Beat Menace and Papamitrou, who were both behind the boards for “Respect The Game” as well.
“I Was Never There” appeared on Weeknd’s 2018 EP My Dear Melancholy, but it’s not the only song Meek samples on “Cold Hearted II.”
Meek also uses Jadakiss‘ hook from DMX’s “We Don’t Give a Fuck,” as he quotes the first two lines and interpolates the next two on his own chorus:
Used to be my dawg, you was in my left titty
Scream, “Ride or die,” I thought you would ride with me
Found out you was jealous, you wouldn’t even grind with me
And when I copped the 6 you wanted the 550
Along with the high profile samples, there are a few less prominent flips on Champions. The Cardo produced “Stuck in My Ways” samples a song from John Harrison’s Creepshow (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack).
The song in question, “Prologue / Welcome to Creepshow (Main Title),” was previously sampled by Three 6 Mafia for their 2000 cut “Mafia Niggaz.”
Meanwhile, the title track on Meek’s album samples Toney Fountaine’s 1987 song “I Found the Girl.”
What’s most interesting about “I Found the Girl” is that Meek previously rapped on beat that sampled that same song—The Game’s “The Soundtrack.”
And finally, on single “Oodles O’ Noodles Babies” Meek sampled Mother’s Finest’s “Love Changes.”
With the album’s long list of samples, it was sure to be expensive to clear them all. However, thanks to the familiar nature of the beats, they give Championships an almost mixtape-like feel. This is sure to be beneficial, considering many of Meek’s most popular material has appeared on his mixtapes.
Check out all the samples above and read all the lyrics to Meek Mill’s new album Champions on Genius now.
