Watch Meek Mill’s interview from prison with NBC’s Lester Holt

Thursday night's edition of NBC's Nightly News dedicated a segment to Meek Mill's ongoing legal struggles, and featured a new interview with the incarcerated rapper, conducted over the phone by host Lester Holt.

Mill, who is currently serving 2-4 years in prison on probation violations, discussed how being on probation since 2007 after an arrest on gun and drug charges has shaped his outlook. "It was always a thought in the back of my mind that ten years of probation would bring me back to prison," he said. Mill was sent to prison in 2017 by Judge Genece Brinkley, who has overseen his case since 2007, after the rapper was arrested for a dirtbike stunt and in a separate altercation in a St. Louis airport. Both charges were dropped.

The segment also includes an interview with District Attorney Larry Krasner, who has called for Mill to be released on bail, along with Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney. Krasner says there are "substantial" issues with Mill's original conviction – Meek Mill's arresting officer appeared on a recently revealed list of police officers that the D.A.'s office disqualified from testifying. Mill's legal team will take the rapper's case before the state supreme court, but the rapper will remain in jail, Krasner says, because of the separation of the branches of the justice system.

Mill told Holt he wants his case to shine a light on broader injustices. "I think God delivered me a job to [help] people minorities that come from these situations like myself... I think God put me in this position to be able to do a show with Lester Holt and open up eyes for other black men."

Meek Mill's case will face a "status conference" on Monday. Yesterday, a rumor circulated online that the rapper would be released, but Mill's attorney Joe Tacopina contradicted the claim.

Thumbnail photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Clear Channel