Otherside Of America

Album: single release only (2020)
Charted: 64
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Songfacts®:

  • Meek Mill released this searing protest song a week after black Minneapolis resident George Floyd died at the hands of a white police officer. He kicks the track off by sampling Donald Trump's August 16, 2016 campaign speech urging the African American community to vote for him.
  • During the cut, the Philly rapper reflects on his impoverished childhood.

    Stomach growlin' like a AMG, goin' to bed, we hungry

    He grew up in a rough part of Philadelphia and was carrying firearms from an early age.

    I'm totin' Smith &'s and HKs and I just was a grade A kid

    Meek's tough childhood represents the "otherside of America," which does not tally with the iconography of the American dream.
  • Meek Mill has become an outspoken advocate for US criminal justice reform following several spells behind bars. He ends the song with another sample, this time taken from the rapper's 2018 interview with CNN's Michael Smerconish on the morning of Championship's release. Meek speaks during the clip on behalf of "the voiceless young men of America" about his experience growing up in a "ruthless neighborhood... not protected by police."

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