Meek Mill has added another award to his mantel.
On Thursday, the Philadelphia rapper/activist was presented with the Nelson Mandela Changemaker Award for his work with REFORM Alliance. The honor was presented by PTTOW! (Plan to Take on the World)—an invite-only community/summit for inspiring figures spanning across 70 major industries.
To celebrate the achievement, Meek dropped a video for his new track “Mandela Freestyle”on Friday. You can watch the visuals up top.
The Nelson Mandela Changemaker Award recognizes leaders who are continuing Mandela’s legacy of peace and social justice.
Since its launch, REFORM Alliance has secured a number of legislative victories across the United States. The organization helped pass Virginia’s HB 2038, which implements caps on probation terms; Mississippi’s SB 2795, a bill that expanded parole eligibility for hundreds of inmates; Georgia’s SB 105, which allows courts to end probationary periods early for individuals with no arrests in the last two years; as well as Michigan’s SB 1048, SB 1050, and SB 1051, which will reshape the state’s probation and parole system by decreasing probation caseloads by over 8 percent and save more than $29 million of taxpayer money. Mill co-chairs REFORM Alliance alongside Michael Rubin. Mill, Rubin, and Jay-Z helped co-found the organization in 2019 with the goal of improving the criminal justice system.
Meek his been very vocal about his own experience within the criminal justice system, and has continued to use his platform to push for meaningful change.
“I’m speaking for the people who are actually caught up in these situations . . . People in this world make mistakes,” he told This Morning’s Gayle King in 2019. “[I want] “do something for the people who come from where I come from.”
Other recipients of the Nelson Mandela Changemakers Award include Sharon Stone, Sophia Bush, Toronto Raptors President and Founder of Giants of Africa Foundation Masai Ujiri, Global Citizen CEO/Founder Hugh Evans, and Dr. Martin Luther King’s advisor, Clarence Jones.
