Rapper Meek Mill spoke about his upbringing in South Philadelphia and his status as a symbol of criminal justice reform when he sat for an interview on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."
Mill described the area where he grew up as a "ruthless environment" where young people living in poverty can get caught up in drugs in violence. He said people don't realize probation violations can be for something as minor at "loitering at a Starbucks."
Mill is currently out on unsupervised bail after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in April that he be released. The higher court ruling followed Judge Genece Brinkley sentencing the rapper to two to four years in prison in 2017 for violating his probation in a nearly decade-old gun and drug case.
Mill served five months in state prison for his latest probation violation.
Mill told DeGeneres that he was eating in his cell, watching her show, when the news came on and he learned about his release through the television set.
"I'm watching the news and 'Meek Mill is up for bail.' I dropped my food, jumped up in the air and I was leaving 10 minutes later," the rapper said.
Since his initial arrest in 2007, Mill's arresting officer, Reginald Graham, has been identified on a list of so-called dirty cops by the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. Prosecutors have tried to keep officers on that list off the witness stand due to wrongdoing that includes lying, racial bias and brutality.
The rapper's legal team has also since asked that Judge Brinkley be removed from the case, but that motion was denied.
Mill has earned support from members of the public as well as high-profile public figures like Jay-Z and the Rev. Al Sharpton and has become a symbol for prison and criminal justice reform around the country.
In a New York Times op-ed published Monday, Mill called for a change in the "broken" criminal justice system.
'We all need to hold our lawmakers accountable for supporting unfair or inhumane policies and all practices that perpetuate injustice, especially for the blacks and Latinos who fall prey to them most frequently," he said in the op-ed.
