Released to correspond with his appearance at Sunday night’s BET Awards, Amazon Studios dropped the first trailer for Free Meek, their upcoming docuseries about criminal justice reform from the viewpoint of rapper Meek Mill, whose ongoing battle with the legal system began when he was 19 and arrested for brandishing a gun during a drug raid, a story the trailer fundamentally calls into question. Convicted in 2008, Meek’s case was presided over by Judge Genece Brinkley.
After more than a decade, and a series of probation violations including failing to inform the court about his travel plans outside Philadelphia, the rapper was arrested in November 2017 for popping a wheelie on a dirt bike in New York City. Despite the charge itself being dismissed, Judge Brinkley sentenced Meek to two to four years in prison for probation violation, a shockingly outsized sentence that galvanized the rapper’s supporters under the #FreeMeek hashtag.
After serving five months last year, Meek has since teamed up with Jay-Z to launch REFORM Alliance, an initiative dedicated to overhauling America’s punishing probation and parole system. In addition to debuting his new show, which premieres on Amazon on August 9, Meek was also recently granted a hearing with a new judge, scheduled for July, part of his long-standing effort to have his original conviction overturned.