Meek Mill, Miguel debut powerful song 'Stay Woke' about race, incarceration at BET Awards

Meek Mill's song, which he debuted during a powerful performance at Sunday's BET Awards, had a message: "Stay Woke."

For the number, Los Angeles' Microsoft Theater was transformed into a neighborhood. It kicked off with a pair of men on the corner reading a newspaper featuring front-page headlines like "17 yr old teen killed by local police officer ruled as homicide" and "Meek Mill's fight for freedom still unfinished."

Wearing a shirt bearing the face of slain rapper XXXTentacion who was shot dead last Monday, Meek Mill rapped about racism.

"In a world where black is wrong and white right, it’s like a combat," he spit on the song that features Miguel. "We go to war for our freedom."

At one point in the performance, a child was hit by a police officer's bullet, and an American flag was placed over the body.

"How can I pledge allegiance to the flag, when they killing all our sons, all our dads?" Mill rapped. "I come from a place where you kill your own brother, you can brag. Like he got bodies, but that’s a fad. No, that’s a fact."

"The odds against you, and they double stacked," he added. "Stay woke."

Toward the end of the performance, Mill was joined onstage by men in orange prison garb carrying cell bars that eventually were dropped.

Mill became a poster child for probation reform after being sent back to prison in November for an additional two to four years for violating probation on a roughly decade-old gun and drug case. The new sentence was opposed by Philadelphia's district attorney at the time and Meek's probation officer.

The rapper was finally freed on bail in April after new District Attorney Larry Krasner admitted that Mill may have been unjustly convicted thanks to a cop who lied at his 2008 trial.

Since his release, Mill has been trying to win a new trial with a new judge.

Contributing: Andrea Mandell

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