Mike Dreams Gets Intensely Personal on “Wanna Be a Baller” (Listen & Download)

There are a lot of reasons that rappers make music, but most of them revolve around some iteration of getting attention, money or both. There's absolutely nothing wrong with ambition, even the most integral emcee wants their music to be heard, but the deepest, most powerful music always seems to be made for more personal reasons. So in that spirit, I'll let RefinedHype regular Mike Dreams take it from here:

"6 years ago today (April 8th), my big brother, Garey Hannah Jr. a.k.a “J.B”, was tragically gunned down in South Minneapolis after being robbed at gunpoint and refusing to give up the money. Growing up, I was able to have talks with him over the years, and tried to grasp and understand the direction his life was going, and where he saw himself to be. Overall, he was a complex individual, who had ambitions and much more things to accomplish, but had that chance to make a turn around and have progression, taken away. He served time early on in his adult years, and once he was out, I saw how society just seemed to never give him a break. It’s so hard in this country to try and get ahead once you’ve made a mistake. I will always remember him, for his insight, his advice to me to not do the things he did, and his love for music, hip-hop and rap music."

Stream and download are below the original video for Lil Troy's "Wanna Be a Caller". For more from Dreams keep an ear out for his “Youngin From ‘88” mixtape, a precursor to his upcoming “Millennial” album.



See Also: The Power of Hip-Hop Positivity: Mike Dreams “We the Ones” (Listen & Download)

(Looking for all of RefinedHype's dope downloads in one place? We got you covered.)