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Meek Mill made his grand comeback with his Championships album five years ago today.
On November 30, 2018, the Philly rapper released his fourth studio album Championships via Maybach Music Group and Atlantic Records. The album arrived seven months after he was released from prison following an appeal to his four-year prison sentence due to a parole violation. It followed his Legends of the Summer EP, which dropped three months after he was released, as well as his 2017 LP Wins & Losses. The project was a major moment for Meek, especially with all the epic collaborations that are featured on the project.
Championships contains 19 tracks and features lead singles "Dangerous" featuring Jeremih and PnB Rock, "24/7" with Ella Mai and "Going Bad" with Drake. The latter song was the first time Meek and Drizzy collaborated following their grueling beef that began in 2015. The album also holds songs like "On Me" featuring Cardi B, "Uptown Vibes" featuring Fabolous and Anuel AA as well as "What's Free" with Rick Ross and JAY Z. Meek also recruited Future, Roddy Ricch, Young Thug, Kodak Black, 21 Savage and Melii to throw down on the album as well.
"It was down to the wire, buzzer beater," Senior Vice President of A&R at Atlantic Records Dallas Martin told Complex about finishing the album in 2018. "The Drake vocals came in on the Tuesday before the Thursday of the release. We got the JAY-Z verse the Saturday before the album came out. We been wanting JAY on the album since the beginning. With JAY-Z, you can't tell him what to do, when to do it, or how to do it. So you got to pray that the song that he send sticks, he likes it, and he wants to do it. Because nobody can move JAY-Z. When he sent back that 44-bar verse, man, we just all lost our minds. We couldn't believe it, man. It was definitely early Christmas for us."
Relive the album below.
WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE