21 Savage is a rapper originally from the United Kingdom who has made a name as one of the most successful rappers in the United States, but it wasn’t easy for him.
On Friday, January 12, 2024, the rapper dropped his long awaited third studio album. His last album that dropped was “i am > i was” and was released in 2018. The rapper did not go without making music in the almost six year period as he had a collab album with Drake and was dropping singles and features throughout that time. Weirdly enough, during this time was when he became one of the biggest rappers in the world largely thanks to the features he did. He was gaining a reputation as a “feature artist” instead of being his own solo artist. Another reason he gained so much popularity during this time was because people found out that he is not originally from the United States and was technically an immigrant who was at threat of being deported. 21 Savage titled his album “american dream” to almost poke fun at the idea of him technically being an immigrant. He states his belief that anyone can come to the United States and achieve the ideal American dream. With his status in this country, it’s safe to say that he has backed up that statement as he’d made more than a name for himself by becoming one of the most successful and famous artists in the country. The whole idea of the album is to show that despite the challenges he has faced in life whether it’s not being an American born citizen or losing family members to violent causes that he is still here standing stronger than ever.
The rapper opens up this album very strongly with “all of me” addressing the events that he has gone through to get to where he is today. The best part of this album is easily the beats, and it shows in songs like this and keep getting better throughout the album. The next song “redrum” is debatably the best on the album. With a great sample in the beginning and a sample of the movie “The Shining” at the end, this track is unforgettable upon first listen. While it does feel like that at certain points in the album that 21 Savage fails to deliver or lets songs go on too long his performance is definitely one of the better ones in his young career.
Another strong point in the album is the features. With artists such as Travis Scott on “née nah” and Brent Faiyaz on “should’ve worn a bonnet” they do not disappoint. Even artists such as Young Thug or producer Metro Boomin who 21 has most commonly worked with don’t disappoint and give him another hit song. While most of 21 Savage’s songs do sound very similar, some of these features help him create a new sound. For example, Summer Walker, Burna Boy, and Mariah The Scientist all help give the artist a new sound that has not yet been heard in his catalog which goes to show his improvement over time as an artist.
In the final overview, this album is one of the more solid ones that we’ve gotten recently in the past year and is definitely one of 21 Savage’s best projects. Overall, this album deserves a 3.5/5 star rating as the beat and features are the standout in this project.
