NPR’S Andrew Limbong talks to Rodney Carmichael about rapper 21 Savage’s new album, American Dream.
ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
Last thing for today – the rapper 21 Savage just dropped his latest album on Friday.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “ALL OF ME”)
21 SAVAGE: (Rapping) I stand on business, dot my I’s and cross my T’s. All I got is these little pictures when I think about all the G’s. Memories in my head, the devil talking to me.
LIMBONG: It’s his first solo album in more than five years, and it’s called “American Dream,” which is maybe a comment on his recent immigration battles. Here to talk about the album is Rodney Carmichael. He writes about hip-hop for NPR Music and is co-host of the Louder Than A Riot podcast. He joins us from Atlanta. Hey, Rodney. What’s up?
RODNEY CARMICHAEL, BYLINE: Hey, what’s going on, Andrew?
LIMBONG: All right. So this is his first solo album in more than five years. Why is this such a big deal?
CARMICHAEL: Well, mostly because 21 has really been fighting for his life. I mean, for the last five years, he’s been mired in a legal battle that really made this chart-topping rapper the face of an overlooked but criminalized class of people in America, and that’s Black undocumented immigrants. A week before he was due to perform at the Grammys for the first time in 2019, he got arrested by ICE agents. And to the surprise of nearly every hip-hop fan in existence, the rapper, who had been repping East Atlanta as his home, was actually born in London, and he’d come to America with his mom as a child and had been living here on really an expired visa for years.
LIMBONG: And there were, like, no hints of that in his music – right? – up until now?
CARMICHAEL: Yeah, not at all. I mean, this is an artist whose discography is really filled with death ballads and survivor’s guilt, all really a consequence of the violence that has defined his upbringing in east Atlanta. And the closest nod to his immigrant origins…
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