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From the Streets to Stardom: The Inspiring Story of 21 Savage
Of all the people representing our brand, 21 Savage probably had the hardest time while growing up. A life filled with crimes, guns, blood and tears. Even though he left this violent life behind him a long time ago, he still takes his listeners into the criminal world when rapping about his past.
Growing up on the streets
Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph was born in 1992 in London and spent the very first years of his life here with divorced parents. At the age of seven, he moved to Atlanta in the United States. The real problems regarding criminal activities started to grow here for the rapper. 21 Savage was banned here from every school in his district due to gun possession. After dropping out of high school in his freshman year, Savage joined a local street gang affiliated with the infamous Blood gang, where he became a full-time drug dealer.
In addition to selling drugs, Shéyaa tried to make a living by participating in robbery and car theft. His younger brother Tayman got killed in a drug deal that went wrong. His best friend Johnny was killed in another incident where Savage himself got shot six times.
Maybe these two events were the necessary tragedies Savage needed to turn his life upside-down. Seeing your best friend and your younger brother getting killed because of the lifestyle you live must brought up some feelings of regret and guilt in the head of 21 Savage.
He talked about this topic in his popular song ‘’A Lot’’ with J Cole: ‘’My brother lost his life and it turned me to a beast’’. The deaths of two people he loved were really messing with his head. At that point, he probably realized what direction his life had taken in recent years, and he didn’t want to see any more people around him die. He needed to stop his violent lifestyle in order to provide a safe environment for his friends and family.
''My brother lost his life and it turned me to a beast
My brother got life and it turned me to the streets
I been through the storm and it turned me to a G
But the other side was sunny, I get paid to rap on beats''
~ 21 Savage on ''A lot''
No enemies anymore
Being a musician can hardly give you enemies who would rather have you dead. The only thing you’re competing here for with your competitors is for instance for a Grammy award. But that competition is resolved by trying to surpass each other on a musical level, not by shooting the rival gang members, or in this case, the rival artists. After the fatal shooting incident with his best friend, which took place in 2013, 21 Savage started rapping a year later, dropping his first song in November 2014.
Rapping about the past
21 Savage has developed a musical style over the past few years that many people are addicted to. Lyrically, Savage is known for an autobiographic rap style talking about his criminal and heart-braking past. His raw and dark lyrics resonate with his current 56,7 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
On a vocal level, Savage knows how to characterize himself by rapping with a brawl, a way of talking that indicates slower and longer vowel sounds. This monotone and smooth flow of 21 Savage clearly indicates that he is in the state of flow every time he’s rapping.
A person we should not forget in the process of creating the infamous 21 Savage sound is producer Metro Boomin. Savage and Boomin go way back in making songs together, releasing their first collaborative album ‘’Savage mode’’, back in 2016. A series of legendary trap albums that the two worked on together would follow.
Metro Boomin likes to use a dark, simple piano melody as the foundation of the beat. By separating the notes in the melody by only one semitone (only going one note up or down on the piano), he creates tension with a menacing undertone that sets a dark mood for the whole song. Metro often also adds saturation to the melody, giving it a more distorted and sampled feeling. Adding a repetitive vocal, most of the times sung by a women makes the beat sounding more full and diverse.
Because the same vocal chop is played over and over, it is a lot easier for 21 Savage to catch a flow on the beat. Last but not least, Metro is known for his hard, but simple drums. 808 notes that cut off abruptly in the pattern and a reversed snare pattern with lots of rolls in it are characterized by this.
''Snitches and rats, they all get whacked
He told on his brother, his brother told back
They say that they twins, we call them Siamese rats (On God)''
~ 21 Savage on ''Snitches and rats''
A long story short, after all the evil and tragic things Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph has been through, he must be very proud of his position in life he is in right now. Being blessed with an amazing producer on his side, 21 Savage knows like no other rapper how to get himself into the flow state when entering the studio and recording a song.
''I seen you strugglin’, I think it left a scar (Left a scar)
I did some things when I was young that broke your heart (Broke your heart)''
~ 21 Savage on ''Letter 2 my momma''
You can’t name a better rapper-producer duo than these two. Metro Boomin was one of the first artists that recognized the raw talent of 21 Savage, which Metro mentions in the podcast of Nelk Boys. They were introduced to each other by mutual friends. Their mutual love for Hip-Hop then connected these two on a musical and friendly level and made them inseparable. After their first collaborative project ‘’Savage mode’’ dropped in 2016, their was no way of stopping them taking over the Hip-Hop world.
A deep interview with 21 Savage where he talks about the loss of his lost ones, his father and loyalty. 21 shows his vulnerable side here and admits how he sometimes cries his eyes out when thinking of all the people he lost in life.
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