Meek Mill ‘Wins & Losses’ – Track By Track Album Review

Wins & Losses, an extremely accurate title to capture the last two years of Meek’s career. Based on how you perceive it, the losses include beef with Drake and Game fuelled by a concoction of things including his past relationship with Nicki Minaj.The main win is despite him being slated as “Twitter Fingers” some time ago, his consistency to drop music has never slowed up. DC4.5 is now a distinct memory, with Meek opting for a similar tactic as he did with DC4 providing us with two eps(Meekend I and II). These Ep’s are better than last years offerings with hits like Young Ni**a Dreams and Left Hollywood my favorites.

 

The album is heavy on features (10/17 tracks) so let’ see if they compliment Meek in this Track by Track Album Review!

1. Wins & Losses

He really likes the Dreams and Nightmare intro drop on his intro/outro’s doesn’t he. Motivational as expected, Meek almost can’t go wrong with these type of openers. Basically, if you like you like the Dreams and Nightmare intro you will like this.

“YOU GOTTA BE POSSESSED WITH THE DREAM”

2. Heavy Heart *

I guess the only way was down tempo wise after that the intro. Although down isn’t really the right word, this is very powerful. Meek is spilling out emotion on how traitors and Nicki turning against him hit him. This is a clear indication that the Instagram flexing wasn’t a true depiction of what Meek was feeling.

“That b*tch left me with a heavy heart”

3. F**k That Check Up (Ft Lil Uzi Vert)

Right the last feature between Meek and Uzi was appallingly bad(as I said here).I understand they are both from Philly but based on this I don’t think they make good songs together. I knew it would be a rapid fire flow all the way through, which is jarring.

4. Whatever You Need (Ft Chris Brown and Ty Dolla $ign)*

With both Chris Brown and Ty Dolla $ign on the same song I thought hmm no space for Meek. I was wrong, Meek’s verses really help to carry what I’ll call “bone thuggish” tone of the song. Really good feature, obviously aimed at mainstream but it doesn’t sound forced at all.

5. 1942 Flows*

Greatness man. He’s back in his element and to think I was mad Left Hollowoyood didn’t make the album cut. This is proper topical rapping, not just calling your album whatever and having loads of random unrelated songs. I don’t think you can listen to this and not be motivated to go out and achieve.

“Trump ain’t feeling us cops still killing us”

6. Issues

The issue with this song is the hook would be better if he let the people he’s trying to imitate do it. In this case someone like PND, Nav etc would’ve handled the hook a lot better. Meh, ok hype turn up song, next.

7. We Ball (Ft Young Thug)

This is another example of above, I don’t like how Meek sounds doing auto-tune. It’s good that Meek keeps Snupe in his raps though, he was very talented. Once Thug comes he completely takes over the song, I almost forgot it featured Meek.

8. These Scars (Ft Future and Guordan Banks)

Meek is on his Jay flow dropping some light gems, seems like he’s been listening to 4:44. Future should’ve been replaced with Wale/Cole or someone who could follow Meek with gems. When Future comes in it just throws the whole song off.

“No more rollies I’m just buying more properties”  – Meek Mill

9. Connect the Dots (Ft Yo Gotti and Rick Ross)

All I have to say is… They call me BIG MEECH LARRY HOOOOVERRR

10. Fall Thru

He’s back to singing again, come on Meek you got the features in the wrong place. What happened to the Dreamchaser budget couldn’t they have got a singer on this Dej Loaf song. It’s a cool relaxed vibe which you rarely hear Meek do.

Side note – Why does he hate bloggers so much!

11. Never Lose (Ft Lihtz Kamraz)

I’ve never heard of this Lihtz guy, the closest comparison is probably Rich Homie Quan. This and Wins & Loses are the best executed energic songs so far on the album. This something I’d set as my alarm, does what it says on the tin, put’s you into a warrior mode.

12. Glow Up

Worst song on the album in my opinion.

13. Young Black America (Ft The-Dream)

This is the one song I heard prior to the album release. The whole idea behind is deep, shedding light on the impact of black on black violence and its links to becoming like the Ku Klux Klan. The video works perfectly alongside the vocals.

14. Open (Ft Verse Simmonds)

Boring, Verse would’ve been better utilized on something like Fall Thru.

15. Ball Player (Ft Quavo)

Quavo sounds half asleep on the hook and Maaly Raw production is Lil Uzi man.This is another example of Meek trying to get on the waves of others but not executing properly. Why wouldn’t you put Uzi this song?

16. Made It from Nothing (Ft Teyana Taylor and Rick Ross)

This is good, but nothing outstanding. It sounds like a lower budget version of Maybach Curtains. Is Meek’s running out of ideas?

17. Price

He should’ve just went all in and made the album songs like this all the way through.

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Meek was really able to channel a lot into this album. The majority of the tracks stayed on the topic of the album title with a few lackluster ones. I did find that throughout listening to this album at points he was trying to copy exactly what he’s already done(e.g. Made It from Nothing).

There are some highs on the album including his lyrical onslaught on 1942 Flows and the open letter Heavy Heart. Although, there are also points when he’s experimenting with melodic flows and trying to sound like the masses instead of focussing on his strengths. Overall, this is an improvement on the DC4 “mixtape” but not a huge one.

Top 3 tracks:  Heavy Heart, 1942 Flows and Whatever You Need. 

8.4/10