By: Mehek Seyid (@whatthemehek) –
Meek Mill. (Photo: Mehek Seyid/Aesthetic Magazine Toronto)
Last night, Meek Mill rolled through Toronto to perform at the Kool Haus in support of his latest mixtape, Dreamchasers 3. Unfortunately, fans had to endure a near-two hour delay before the doors even opened, consequently resulting in an extremely late show.
It really tested the patience of Meek Mill’s Canadian fanbase. There are only so many times you can listen to DJs spinning “U.O.E.N.O.” to get hyped up for a performance. This was obvious with a fair share of audience members, who began the night dancing and excited, but eventually ended up clinging to the stage and barricades bored and a little annoyed by the time the clock struck midnight.
Despite this, Meek Mill’s arrival on stage, a half hour later and nearly three and a half hours after the originally scheduled nine o’clock start time, instantly revived his dedicated following as he jumped into “Intro” from Dreamchasers 2 and “Ima Boss” from Self Made Vol. 1. Several fans clustered around the center of the stage in hopes of some interaction with the Maybach Music Group rapper, who leaned in a few times to shake hands and take photos of his audience. However, Meek Mill was more focused on delivering a crowd-pleasing set, and kept dialogue to a minimum.
Dressed in a long sleeve black t-shirt with a dark blue bandana tail, Meek Mill drew from the more recent end of his well-developed catalogue for his performance, including a few of his features, favourites from his Dreamchaser mixtape series, and his 2012 debut album, Dreams and Nightmares. These outputs demonstrate Meek Mill’s strong ability to balance lyrical integrity with a mainstream sound, one of the main reasons Meek Mill has risen in hip-hop over the last few years. Fans were equally drawn in by his personal anecdotes on “Lil’ Snupe”, a tribute to the eighteen year old rapper signed to Meek Mill’s Dream Chasers Records who was murdered this past June, and the oh-so-trill “Dope Dealer.”
Meek Mill quickly built up his audience with these kinds of highlights before smashing through a series of his biggest hits, including “Amen”, which, despite earlier promises from the show hosts, did not have Drake appear on stage, “Believe It”, and “Levels”, a standout on the Maybach Music Group’s Self Made Vol. 3. The atmosphere was visibly more enthusiastic as people began to bounce around, only to be lost minutes later when Meek Mill closed with his verse from Yo Gotti’s “Fuck You” before saying a quick and swift goodbye to his audience.
As the lights lifted and the stage cleared out, fans suddenly realized that after all of that time, they only got an enjoyable but disappointingly short half hour performance out of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-native. For someone who has eight mixtapes, contributed to four collaborative albums, countless features and one major record, he probably could have shared something more than “Fuck You” for his farewell.
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