YNW Melly sings a sad song for his mother about how he hopes she won’t be too upset while he spends time in prison. Like a few of his other songs, it is written from the perspective of being incarcerated. This song was originally written and performed for his mother while in jail when Melly was 17.

Unfortunately, Melly’s mother has been used to seeing her son behind bars.

Even before his February 2019 arrest relating to charges involving the death of 2 friends, Melly was no stranger to incarnation. He served time in 2017 with a year-long sentence for firing a weapon in 2015. He claimed in his Genius Interview for Murder on My Mind that he wrote the original hook of that song in prison. He was also arrested in June 2018 for drug charges and again for a short stint in January 2019 once again for drug charges.

https://genius.com/Ynw-melly-mama-cry-lyrics

More info from same source:

During Melly’s last stay in jail he recorded this video of him singing the early version of Mama Cry

Video of early version: Melly in the feds [01:02] https://youtu.be/OAa1wo7V4SA