Amazon’s Meek Mill docuseries ‘Free Meek’ drops first trailer, announces release date

The trailer for Free Meek, a new documentary chronicling North Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill’s battles with the criminal justice system, premiered during the BET Awards on Sunday night. The trailer touts the docuseries as “An American crisis as told by one man’s fight.” It will premiere Friday, August 9 on Amazon Prime.

The decidedly pro-Mill series is centered on the two- to four-year prison sentence the rapper received for parole violations stemming from a 2008 arrest. In April of last year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted Mill “extraordinary relief” and released him on bail. The perceived harshness of that sentence turned Mill into an international cause celebre and a symbol of justice reform.

Included in the docuseries are Van Jones and Jay-Z, both of whom, along with Philadelphia 76ers co-owner Michael Rubin and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, among other high-profile entrepreneurs, have partnered with Mill on the Reform Alliance, a group that lobbies for criminal justice reform. Jay-Z’s Roc Nation coproduced the series.

Also featured are Luke Brindle-Khym and Tyler Maroney, who lead Quest Research & Investigations LLC (QRI), the firm that worked on HBO’s The Case Against Adnan Syed, in which they reinvestigated the murder case made famous on the podcast Serial. A release promises that new information about Mill’s case will be uncovered.

Among other shots that capture Philadelphia, from City Hall to Mill’s old North Philadelphia neighborhood, the trailer opens with Mill’s epic return to headline last year’s Made in America, a night that Inquirer music critic Dan DeLuca said “unquestionably belonged to Mill.”