Houston’s Maxo Kream is a truly great storyteller, a writer capable of conjuring heavy pathos while getting into the minute nuts and bolts of life on the other side of the law. A year ago, Maxo released a truly excellent album called Punken. Since then, he’s faced some turbulent times. And he uses admirable candor to talk about those times on “Meet Again,” the new single that he released today.

“Meet Again” is structured as a communiqué to an incarcerated friend. Maxo starts out by explaining that he tried to visit his friend in jail but that they wouldn’t let him in, so now he can only communicate by letter. And a lot of the song is just him talking to this unnamed friend about what’s going on on the outside, lamenting his friend’s situation: “You can’t be there like a father, and it’s fucking with you mentally / Court-appointed lawyer got my bro a half a century.”

But the song really gets heavy when Maxo starts talking about his own family: “My pops back in the system, he might just die in prison / My mom is co-defendant, so she got locked up with him / He got snitched on by his own sister, she the eyewitness / Now every time I see my blood cousins, I don’t even feel ‘em.” Houston legend Mike Dean co-produced the track, but the draw is Maxo himself. Check it out below, via 2DopeBoyz.

“Meet Again” is on the streaming services now.