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With a cinematic organ blaring in the background, Meek Mill opens the introductory track of “Expensive Pain” with the thought, “every time I get back in the streets, this sh*t get darker.” Before the album dropped, Mill tweeted “What ever you expect out of me as a artist … I’m tryna give you that times 20 on expensive pain,” signalling to fans that his upcoming album, released on Oct. 1, would be a victory lap for the Philadelphia-based rapper.

But Mill hasn’t released a full-length project since 2018. He’s only been heard in features and 11 singles. Although most songs on “Expensive Pain” show vintage Mill, there’s some experimentation at times on this album, but it’s poorly timed and the narrative starts to unravel after that first line.

The title “Expensive Pain” also previews the topics of the album, but is overshadowed by some underwhelming and repetitive bars. The album also has strong features and trap beats across the entire record, but most songs lack a staying quality with listeners.

During the first track, “Intro (Hate on Me),” Mill carries the momentum from the first line for the next two minutes, trying to fit as many words as possible in between each downbeat.

But Mill has some strange lines, like “​​You know I be hangin’ wit’ Jews / Get money wit’ Russians, I’m makin’ my moves,” while carrying the same beat into the next song, “Outside (100 MPH).” Mill does have famous Jewish friends like Michael Rubin and Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft, but this line just sounds like he is running out of bars. Both songs amount to over six minutes of Mill spitting with no real chorus; it’s clearly an outlet for Mill to vent about the thoughts he’s been holding in since before the pandemic even started.

Though autotune is used excessively by most rappers today, Mill has mostly stayed away from using the audio processor until this album, where Mill employs it in “On My Soul” and “Love Money.” While Mill likely uses it to show more emotion and hone in on certain lyrics, it sounds more like a poor impression of Lil Baby.

Mill mirrors the setup from his 2018 album “Championships” by featuring more R&B artists such as Kehlani and Brent Faiyaz. Those songs slow down the sound of the album, allowing for their voices to shine over lo-fi beats.

Kehlani drops an emotional chorus on “Ride For You,” saying “I pray for us, pray your heart I’ll always keep.” But that doesn’t mesh well with Mill’s part, as he raps with an angry talking style, “f*ckin’ you from Monday all the way to Friday.”

“Sharing Locations” featuring Lil Baby and Lil Durk is one of the strongest songs on the album. The trio of rappers take turns going one after another on a catchy beat that samples an old Bulgarian song. During these verses the group mesh together like The Big Three from the 2010-14 Miami Heat, where vintage Mill takes over as the group’s Lebron James.

The song shows Mill trying to stay relevant in the rap game, employing features from rappers who are reaching the top of the game themselves. But this is one of the only songs where Mill is on par with his featured artists, as most other tracks he either takes over or is underwhelming.

The production across the album, like most songs from Mill, is strong and still makes the album feel cohesive with previous albums in his discography. Dark trap beats, piano or guitar back bones and sampled songs are efficiently used throughout the album, which makes up for some of the ill-timed lyrics or repetitive flows.

Best track: Blue Notes 2 (feat. Lil Uzi Vert)

“Blue Notes 2” was one of three singles that dropped before the album’s release. This is the first song the duo released since 2016, when Mill was one of the first major artists to feature Lil Uzi, who at the time was just rising to fame with the mixtape “Lil Uzi Vert vs. The World.”

But that 2016 song, “Froze,” which also featured Nicki Minaj, used a bass-heavy trap beat rather than the guitar-backed sound on “Blue Notes 2.” The latter is a continuation of the song “Blue Notes” from Mill’s 2016 mixtape “DC4.” Like its predecessor, Mill packs in as many lyrics as possible for the first minute before giving Vert space to seamlessly take over for a few bars.

Mill has some of his strongest bars from the entire album on Blue Notes 2, talking about his past saying “Like Shawshank, no redemption, I was the richest n**** in the prison,” and “I was like sixteen with the MAC on me / Deep in the field like it’s Pop Warner.” These bars feature prime Mill, spitting emotionally about his troubled youth and experience behind bars.

Two-and-a-half minutes into the track, the rappers pause to the sound of money being counted before the beat drops again and Mill and Uzi get in their final thoughts. This is one of the strongest conclusions to a track on “Expensive Pain,” as most before either go on for too long or don’t carry the energy from the beginning of the song to the end.

One skip: Love Train

“Love Train” opens with another emotional beat, similar to “Ride For You.” But right as the song starts, Mill contrasts the emotive production by rapping about having sex without protection. Then he randomly brings in autotune 20 seconds in after using his regular style in the beginning of the track.

The song is definitely geared towards one person in particular, as Mill uses second person in his lyrics. But the overall message is hindered because two minutes into the nearly four-minute track Mill abandons any form of rhythm to start talking over the beat.

The Philadelphia rapper is trying to achieve some sort of R&B sound with the use of autotune in the chorus, but it sounds like another impression of Lil Baby or Roddy Rich, since this sort of emotional rap and R&B mix is very different from his sound on the rest of the album. This track in particular is an experiment gone wrong, and as the longest song of the record, it can’t stop early enough.

Final thoughts:

In 2018, Mill was undoubtedly one of the top rappers in the world. But with his first project since that time, he took a step backward, not forward. Although the sound is still pretty similar to what got him famous, this style is getting redundant and isn’t on par with the rap game’s shift toward an R&B- and dance-heavy sound.

This album is lacking what all other albums from Mill have had in the past — a single, undeniable banger. “Going Bad” from his previous album “Championships,” which features Drake, is close to one billion listens, while songs like “Dreams and Nightmares” have taken on a pantheon status with Philadelphians.

If Mill wants to return to his deserved throne in the rap scene, he needs to make a momentous shift in his sound and show that he’s not a one-trick artist. He’s responsible for some of the best verses of this generation, but nothing on this album is even close to what he’s done in the past.

Published on October 12, 2021 at 11:28 pm