The second installment finds him fitting into the MMG mold more consistently, creating a more fluid listening experience but dulling his actual performance in the process. Jarringly positioned between Maybach riot music, tracks like the murder ballad "Tony Story" found Meek displaying an eye for detail-oriented street storytelling that not only exceeded the talents of every other rapper in his crew, but also those of most in his generation. Still, the tape's finest moments were its quieter ones. His Ross-assisted hit "I'm A Boss" was so seamless in its transition that Meek himself went almost unnoticeable, while the solo "House Party" found a comfortable (and infectious) middle ground between the two styles.
Released last summer, the first Dreamchasers installment - also his first with MMG - was largely inconsistent, with Meek willingly and sometimes awkwardly squeezing his spastic scattershot style into the more seething and deliberate aggression of the MMG template. (The bigger of the two, Dat Piff, says the tape got two million downloads in 24 hours, though these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.) And, yet, for all of its buzz, it's a strangely understated effort. Within an hour of its release Monday, his Dreamchasers 2 crashed the internet's two most prominent mixtape sites. It took a cosign from Rick Ross, who signed the rapper to his Maybach Music Group imprint to make him look like a national rap star. By 2010 he was close to a legend in his hometown, without an ounce of national press or presence. For nearly a decade he toiled in his hometown of Philadelphia, evolving from aimless and endless street corner freestyles as a teen to producing polished studio tracks, perfecting his manic nasal wheeze and building a genuinely organic local fanbase in the process. Meek Mill is an anomaly in the internet era, a genuine slow-burn rap star.
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