21 Savage

One Liner: "Atlanta" mumble rapper who has a couple very good tracks.

Wikipedia Genre: Hip hop, gangsta rap, horrorcore, trap, mumble rap
Home: Atlanta (but also actually London)

Poster Position: 4

Both Weekends.

Thoughts: I couldn't remember having listened to this guy at all - the only reason that I knew anything about him was that he had recently been arrested by ICE for being in the US illegally.  Which was a hell of a shock to a lot of folks who pop up on my Twitter timeline, because homie certainly has passed himself off as an Atlanta guy, not a limey Brit who should be deported.  It's actually a little bit amazing that he pulled that off - you'd never have known from his music that he isn't just another guy raised in Atlanta.  He apparently claimed in interviews to be born and raised in Georgia.  Here is a harsh own from an ICE guy: "A spokesperson for ICE said of 21 Savage, "His whole public persona is false. He actually came to the U.S. from the U.K. as a teen and overstayed his visa.""  But according to Wikipedia, the case is "postponed indefinitely."  Which probably means Barron Trump is into his music and asked Daddy to stop hassling the cool rappers and just concentrate on the housekeepers at rival resorts.

Wikipedia also discusses that he was banned from every school in DeKalb County when he was in seventh grade, for gun possession.  DAMN!  He finished 8th grade in an alternative school and then just dropped out to sell weed.  AND, on his 21st birthday, he was shot six times by rival gang members during an attempted robbery.  Holy shit, dude.  Limey Brit is a damn gangster.  It was that shooting (that also killed a friend) that started off his rapping career (and inspired the "21" part of his name).

I've only listened to one of this guy's albums (actually a mix-tape) before, 2016's Savage Mode, which led to one of my most proud moments in music-brain-mastery history, as I was able to ear worm my brain into remembering an extremely random sample.  Witness:

21 Savage - Savage Mode.  I'll give it up to Metro Boomin, his beats are super solid.  Every track on this album is made with a Metro Boomin beat (he's the guy with the song tag that sounds like someone saying something about a metronome - to me it sounds like it says "if you metronome trust me I'm go shoot you," as little as that makes sense).  This guy's rap flow is the most laid back and slow sounding thing I've heard since DJ Screw died.  He very rarely speeds up his flow past a turtle crawl (but see "Bad Guy," actually don't, that song is dumb), but it works.  But then there are some garbage tracks like "Feel It," which involves the guy saying that he can feel it in the air about 3,727 times and also talking about the demeaning ways he plans to bone his lady friend (and let her meet his momma).  The most popular track is the one featuring Future ("X"), which is pretty weak.  The "Ocean Drive" beat uses something that is familiar to me.  It's that flute (?) lilt with harpsichord in the background that starts at about 0:13 or 0:14 in the track.

What is that from?  Dammit!  I can't find anything about it on the Internets, but I know I've heard that sample before.  I feel like someone should be talking under it, like a movie clip, not singing or rapping. Daaaaaaammmnn. Whatever - this track is solid - the beat and the chilled rap too.  I like that one.  I'll dump the rest of the disc though.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!  I figured it out!  That sample, or at least the sound for that flute lilt interpolation Metro Boomin' made, matches up to the sound in U2's "Never Let Me Go" from the Million Dollar Hotel soundtrack.

Listen right about 3:02 in when the sax/flute plays a little soft tune.  Oh man, it makes every synapse in my brain tingle and vibrate right now that I was able to come up with that little nugget of brain real estate and remember this.  I just literally grabbed my head and then pumped my fist.  I knew I knew that sound.

Now that I'm done congratulating myself, how about the rest of this guy's catalog?  That album in 2016 wasn't actually a real album, was apparently just a mixtape.  He has some massive hits (as far as streams go), with "X" (featuring Future) up there at 337.6 million streams, and his track on Cardi B's album ("Bartier Cardi") boasting 257.0 million streams.  But then his first real album was 2017's ISSA Album, which was followed in 2018 by I Am > I Was.

ISSA Album debuted at number 2 on the Billboard chart, and features one big hit - his biggest streamer at 580.6 million - called "Bank Account."  Well, actually, his biggest streamer is going to be Post Malone's "Rockstar," (at 1.5 freaking BILLION) because he had a verse on there, but this is just his own personal top streamer.

Oh, hey!  I know that song!  King Vader used it in one of his videos - 

I kind of liked that one (even if it wasn't Vader's best one, with the brothers who get in trouble when little brother calls Mom).  Also, Mike Epps is funny in there.  Pretty solid song, although now I understand why it is called "mumble rap."

The new album is a trick - it you look at the track listing, it looks like he doesn't have any collaborations on there, but then when you listen to the tracks, I find myself thinking stuff like "all my friends" really sounds like Post Malone and "good day" sure sounds like ScHoolboy Q.  And a short bit of research confirms - he has all sorts of people on here, including Post Malone, ScHoolboy, J. Cole, Offset, Childish Gambino, Travis Scott - he's just missing Future and Drake to have the popular current complete package.  The hit off of this album is actually pretty damn good - I've heard it on the radio a few times and it is exceedingly catchy.  "a lot" has 188.3 million streams.

Oooooh, that soul sample and then the bass kicking in - so very tasty.  Even if he is just using the same words at the end of the lines for a rhyme, that beat is so damn smooooooth.  And his raps in between the chorus are actually pretty legit too - autobiographical tales of coming up.  Video is also good, the scenes showing how each member of the family could have ended up without those riches...  And the J Cole verse, with the diss to people faking their stream counts, is also pretty solid, and then clowning Tekashi for rotting on a cot in a cell.  Overall, I actually like this album (except for the shit Post Malone track).

I might actually go check him out - depends on the schedule, I'm not going to do this over any of my top picks, but this is fun rap.