How 21 Savage Outlasted the Mumble Rap Era

21 Savage was nothing more than another mindless Mumble rapper he used to get bullied online for things like ruining hip-hop the effortless way in which he raps and even for the way he pronounces words but through growth focus and persevering through adversity 21 Savage has outlasted the era he came up in while so many other rappers have disappeared Into Obscurity it's your boy Lua and today we're going to be investigating how 21 Savage went from being an absolute joke to becoming one of the most most respected rappers in the game 21 Savage was basically born into chaos growing up in the zone 6 area of Atlanta he was immediately exposed to some of the horrors that it had in store including his father being a drug addict through ining his dad scrape together cash for his next hit he revealed that the life of a gangster was the way to make money and escape the poverty he saw around him my whole life really you know what I'm saying my dad smoked dope so he was a little godamn J so I always used to see like him doing little crack ass [ __ ] that how I knew what crack was and then you know what I'm saying when when really when got in that gray where like man I I want them new shoe that I spoil that mother got that's when start jumping in the street trying to you know what I'm saying Hustle sell some little weed so it's really been my whole life really since I was born you know what I'm saying I've been involved with the street but hands on I say about 13 14 although he claimed that he had a song or two just like everyone else in the hood Savage never really saw hip hop as a way out for him until one day when everything changed on his 21st birthday Savage was involved in a shootout with his Ops that resulted in him being shot six times while he did escape with his life his best friend died before his eyes to deal with the pain this caused 21 to harden himself and turned more ruthless than ever turned into a Savage man I got on that bull I God now trying to kill everybody man everybody if you a [ __ ] look at me wrong B he's gonna die B you know what I'm saying anybody who owes me money B theyig got on that real goddamn PID and for where did you get hit uh my hand my neck my arm my finger and my collar bone so you got hit four times as well as causing him to grow colder the whole thing was a wakeup call for Savage that made him wonder if music was the answer because if it wasn't for the fast thinking paramedics that arrived on scene he could have easily died that night they put me on the stretcher cut my clothes off put me on the stretcher boom she say godamn let's pull up and let's take him now cuz if sge get here he'll [ __ ] around and die cuz they'll be trying to ask him questions before they let us take him away type right that sh with me like the whole like after I really was just thinking about it like damn how many of my partners who like I wasn't there but they got shot and they around and died because somebody wanted to question after that she just changed that's when I really start I'm just going to try something new gifted studio time by his late friends uncle 21 began trying to find his flow and after 2 years of work he dropped the slaughter tape in 2015 all a sudden he was a major player in an ATL rap scene that was exploding at the time because from the minute trap fans hit play on the mixtape's opening track skirt skirt it was obvious that his sound was so raw and refreshing this song is still an absolute anger to this very day and as one user commented it was one of the darkest songs he's ever heard which also perfectly describes the next few songs he would go on to release such as Slaughter King and free goop with sunny digital after gaining some small momentum Savage kept grinding but soon everything would change when he dropped Savage mode with Metro booming this project was full of what many would consider to be real Street anthems and it was at this point that the mainstream started to take notice of him and in early interviews people found out that he was at as real as it gets they said in the seventh grade you got suspended from middle school for gun possession yeah and you mentioned that in the song called no heart yeah that was real you had to protect yourself in in that grade suddenly getting the call from some of the biggest media outlets and interviews 21 Savage was on his way to Fame and Fortune but he had to experience that Success Through the same lens of all the trauma he had experienced as well Johnny that's my right hand right hand like you know what I'm saying like I would have call been calling him right now I'm I'm at breakfast club bro you won't believe it you know what I'm saying that's Larry is like that's my left hand you know what I'm saying his mama me Johnny crucia Rock like all us we used to like Larry mama raised us you know what I'm saying like we used to stay with her BL blah him Larry and his mama got murdered like 2011 you know what I'm saying and then Johnny that's my partner partner that's he got killed 2013 most people be able to deal with that type it's life though while 21 viewed it simply as the harsh truth of life for others merely hearing about his experiences was deeply distressing let alone living through them but after hearing his story users would often comment about how much respect they had for him despite the hardship he' faced 21 kept growing in stature in the rap game basically a year on from dropping his first tape he was already on the dou XXL freestyle list alongside other Rising Stars like Kodak Black Lotti Uzi and Denzel Curry since then the cipher between these five men has taken on legendary status with each man going off to forge a unique path on their own however back then many considered them to be part of a trend that some hardcore hip-hop fans feared would be the downfall of the genre it was common to see comments like this one reading never heard of none of them but I bet they all sound like the same autotune mumbling Bush unfairly grouped into a category with people like L xan Lil pump ugly God and and other artists who were seen as not taking the genre seriously this is something that 21 always resisted I'm going keep doing what I do so they can keep talking [ __ ] and saying I'm a Mumble rapper but you can hear every word I godamn say although at the time there were reasons to assume that he would just be a flash in the pan like the rest of them were he always seemed gone off lean in his early interviews and the title of his debut album Isa was even derived from a meme after he was mocked for the way he pronounced words during an interview with DJ Vlad what does the cross on your forehead signify it's a knife meanwhile he was getting caught brandishing guns at pool parties in a way that isn't usually great for career longevity when it dropped his debut record peaked at number two on the charts and handed him a massive hit single with bank account I buy a new car for the B I tell on with the B you can't even talk to the [ __ ] now she [ __ ] sh he would continue to keep his foot on the culture's neck for the rest of 2017 as well turning into now legendary without warning with offset in Metro before he guessed it on what would later be a diamond certified single in Rockstar with post Malone but even as everything was going his way it seemed like 21 was maturing and outpacing the other rappers around him they were still playing kid games while he was making moves towards securing his future because ever since he popped out 21 knew what he was in it for my goal in hip-hop is to get rich and take care of my homies and my mama I don't want to be the best rapper in the world I don't want to be the richest rapper in the world I want all my partners to have nice houses and cars and I want my mama to have a nice car and a nice house by leveling up his mindset and stank focus on his goals 21 set himself up to avoid the traps that so many other rappers of his age bracket fell into but what no one knew at the time was that he would need that maturity to handle being thrown one of the most terrifying curveballs of his life in the beginning of 2018 21 continued to distance himself from the same rappers that he was often compared to where other rappers were buying Iced Out grills and ridiculous Diamond chains 21 was instead distancing himself from the clout chasing imagery moving more like a grown man stopped wearing jewelry for a couple of reasons one is because everybody wears jewelry I I don't grew it kind getting a little nier and growing so another reason is because richest people that I've ever met in my life they never had on jur every time I meet somebody who's very very rich like wealthy I never seen them with jury on and ever since I've been saving money and not spending it on jury I've been getting way richer at the same time he was looking to invest in things that weren't dangling from his neck he was also positively contributing to his community such as starting an annual back to school drive and mentoring kids in his neighborhood I got kids that I just gave $1,000 a piece to who are in school and for inspiration and financial literacy so it's like I'm still in the hood it's just you got to change what you do in the hood cuz you could be positive still in the hood you don't like being in the hood don't just make you negative like you could you could be in the hood doing negative stuff or you could be doing positive stuff although his lyrical content hadn't changed much from the gangster rap bars of his youth every time he stepped up to a mic to talk about his journey led him to gaining more and more praise that other rappers from his Freshman Class weren't getting and it was things like this that helped him receive massive respect from his audience who saluted 21's perspective and how much he's matured but it wasn't just the audience noticing even a rapper who was very scornful of 21's generation saw that there was something different about him just 7 months after jcole unveiled 1985 a track which basically ridiculed the Cockiness of so-called Mumble rappers like Lil pump who assumed that they would always be on top he gave 21 Savage a feature after the two hit it off at Jay-Z's maid in America Festival this moment proved that 21 was already seen as operating above the kind of rappers that the dreamville CEO was once taking aim at when just a few years earlier he was also seen as one of them their collaboration a lot would be the intro to his sophomore album I am greater than I was far from just an album title the album got 21 Savage endless praise and reviews for stepping his game up and really learning his craft armed with his first number one album Savage was on top of the world but without warning his past would come back to derail his life as he knew it as on February 4th 2019 21 Savage got detained by Ice as an illegal immigrant according to officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement sha bin Abraham Joseph who goes by the stage name 21 Savage was arrested for overstaying his Visa the rapper allegedly entered the us legally in 2005 but failed to leave under the terms of his non-immigrant visa when it expired the following year rapper has long claimed Atlanta as his hometown but ice officials say he's actually a British citizen most people didn't even know 21 Savage was from anywhere other than Atlanta so the news came as a massive shock and for some people the only answer was to make the whole thing into a meme suddenly taken away from his loved ones what was very sketchy about the whole ordeal was that he was detained just days after he had publicly criticized ice during a recent performance on Jimmy Fallon where he wrapped the lines been through some things but I couldn't imagine my kid stuck at the border straight away people thought this was a little too coincidental and his lawyer even called the whole thing curious and troubling held for 9 days and forced to miss his performance at the Grammys Savage spoke out just 24 hours after he was released and basically suggested that the whole thing had been orchestrated I don't even know I was just driving and I just seen guns and blue lights and then I was in the back of a car and I was gone they didn't say nothing they just said we got Savage it was definitely targeted after for a lot of people this might have made them resentful or maybe even a little scared to stay on the path that they were on but not for Savage within days of being freed he launched a 21 Savage bank account campaign aimed at advising kids on how to manage money and steer clear of credit card companies rather than seeing his issues with ice as a warning to stay silent 21 Savage took it as validation that he was right on track and since then he's been proving all of those people who' originally doubted him wrong with each year it feels like 21 has managed to solidify the idea that he's wise Beyond his years he's even been praised for it multiple times on podcasts like TI expeditiously because the difference between who he was at the beginning of his career and now is staggering I always like to see 21 interviews because he's grown into a man that I doubt people early on didn't think he would whereas other rappers in his bracket are still getting hit with fresh charges or getting into fuse with fellow artists over pettiness Savage has reached a point where he's basically became a mediator in beefs which further showcas cases just how far he has came from the days where he wanted to kill anyone that looked at him wrong 21 Savage did something I thought was very dope and this he gave me this explanation he said yo I think it was getting to a point he's like when two friends are going at it if it goes far enough you got to pick a side and he basically said it was go it was going to a point where he was going to be forced to like yo are you really rocking with this [ __ ] a or or you you rocking over here we did have a real conversation and it was one of like you know um let's stop the petty [ __ ] to each other and let's if if if we're not going to be going all the way with it let's try to mend and build towards something that could be like amicable and don't mean that we going to be best friends in a club popping bottles but we shouldn't be at each other's NE especially when you know not necessarily like our paths have to intertwine you know what I mean so again I thought I was a grown man discussion and I and I enjoyed it and I appreciate 21 Savage for for facilate every now and then he still gets into a few arguments on something like Clubhouse but it's still a million miles away from the man that most people thought he was when he came out at the same time he's continued to progress musically on 2020 Savage mode 2 with Metro boomman he proved that he didn't lose a single step after all that ice drama after that he went on a crazy feature run and by that point he flaunted the fact that he was ahead of everyone else he came up with that freshman cover be nobody so so so so you could beat L Uzi hell yeah naturally classmates like Kodak Black and designer took issue with what he was saying but when you look at the numbers it's pretty hard to argue with him in 2022 he had the top five most entries on the billboard 200 without putting a single record out then in 2023 yet had a huge year courtesy of teaming up with Drake for their collaborative album her laws and if you had any doubts about how much he's respected in the game he was actually the one who gu Ed Drake on how to attack that project you know I'm pointing it out like when he sent me the song I'm I'm pointing out what I heard like and telling him like yeah [ __ ] talk that [ __ ] y you gassing it you know I'm gassing I'm behind him I'm standing whatever he's standing on I'm standing on it too it wasn't just him trying to talk himself up either a lot of people saw him as the man that helped Inspire Drake towards making one of his best albums in years this album is proof that he always brings out the best in people I think it speaks volumes about how much people respect him and how he's able to bring out the best from the Optics alone working with Drizzy on a collab project helps people to associate you with the Pinnacle of the game I mean the last person to do that prior to him was future and before that it was Kanye I mean before they started beefing but when it comes to the numbers 2023 is the year that proved he's really in the elite this year 21 racked up 6 billion streams without releasing a solo project that puts him at six overall in the US with only Taylor Swift Drake Morgan Wallen Bad Bunny in the weekend performing better than him whether you're a skeptic that thinks Drake put him on or someone who believes that 21 Savage is just a superstar in his own right there's no denying that he's flourishing right now in a way that most of the artists who came up in that Mumble rap wave just aren't and more importantly he's done it without getting involved in drama or doing cheap publicity stuns to keep his name out there besides that what makes what he's accomplishing also impressive is that he's doing it without even trying to compete

Channel: Louaista

Views: 250,140

Keywords: hip hop, canvas, canvas man, louaista

Id: yzfhq2H46Ic

Length: 16min 36sec (996 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 14 2024