BounceBackMeek

​​​​Blue Chips is a monthly rap column that highlights exceptional rising rappers. To read previous columns, click here. If you know Stockton, California’s high homicide rates and the gang activity, poverty, and institutional neglect that account for them, Louis Park seems located in a different zip code. The lush, green park is interspersed with towering trees, barbecue pits, picnic tables, handball courts, and baseball diamonds. Docks jut into the bordering San Joaquin River, where BounceBackMeek and his friends go boating during the summer, their most private conversations partly spoken in Khmer. For Meek, the 24-year-old grandson of Cambodian immigrants and one of the brightest talents in Stockton rap’s first golden age, Louis Park is a sanctuary. “That’s a safe place for us. I can hav...