By Kaitlyn Rodriguez
On Jan. 12, British-American rapper 21 Savage released his third solo album named American Dream, starting off the year with new music. The album contains 15 songs along with features of other popular artists including Doja Cat, Metro Boomin, Travis Scott, Brent Faiyaz, and more.
Over the years, 21 Savage has grown into the artist he is today. He is one of the most popular rappers right now and is known for his features on songs with other artists, his last album being a collaborative one with Drake.
In this album, it focuses on who 21 Savage has become, and some of the lyrics in the songs show genuine emotion, possibly commenting on the immigration battles that he has had to face while coming to America.
The album starts off with an interlude, the rapper’s mom introducing the album describing the sacrifices that she made for her son as well as the family’s emigration from Britain to America so he can live the “american dream”. It sets the tone for the album, and gives listeners a sense of why he named the album this phrase, and a nice touch is the album cover being a picture of him as a child.
14 out of 15 tracks on the album made the Billboard Hot 100. Two songs made it to the top 10.
“Redrum”, one of the fan favorites on the album, and one of the two that made the top 10, starts off slow with an orchestral intro, then soon has a beat drop that goes right into the song, and even gives a small diss towards TSA. You also get a perspective of the violent side of his life on this song as well as the song “Dangerous”, with an appearance from Lil Durk.
The other song that made it to the top 10 was “Née-Nah” which features American rapper and songwriter Travis Scott.
While the album gives more of an insight of how the artist grew up with a rather violent lifestyle, we also see him reflecting on his past and how he used to live his life.
You hear this mostly on the songs “Letter to my Brudda” and “Dark Days”. Some of the lyrics go into how he came from the worst conditions and circumstances and how some people are forced to make decisions that they don’t want to make and how it is about survival, reflecting on the time where he joined the wrong crowd.
21 Savage also manages to give advice through his music, telling listeners to “just stay in school” and “you gon’ lose a lot of friends and that’s what hurts the most”.
After his last collaborative album with Drake, many fans were looking forward to him putting out a solo album, since his last one was released in 2020, so it has been a while since he has put out something on his own.
American Dream is still doing great almost two weeks later, and many are still talking about it all over social media. This would be his fourth album now that has made it to number one on the Billboard 200 chart.