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21 Savage‘s American Dream is expected to achieve quite the milestone for an album, topping this week’s Billboard 200 charts with no less than 130,000 units sold.
Per Hits Daily Double, this achievement — which, as of this writing, is still in projections, with the official numbers to be released late on Sunday (January 14) evening — will mean that the UK native will have his fourth No. 1 album in the charts.
In addition, all fifteen tracks from the album landed on Apple Music’s Top 20 when it officially dropped on Friday (January 12).
Savage’s long-awaited follow-up to 2018’s i am > i was has also been well-received by critics, with HipHopDX giving the album a 3.5 stars out of a possible 5.
On this new project, the dead-eyed nihilism of Savage Mode is almost entirely gone, and even the victory lap theatrics of i am > i was don’t really appear.
There’s no need for gimmicks like on Issa Album or Savage Mode II. Instead, american dream is 21 Savage at his most deeply intimate, treating the recording booth like a diary, examining his life and career from a 30,000-foot view.
21 Savage Visits The ‘Real’ London In Gritty ‘Redrum’ Video: Watch
Savage isn’t bitter on his latest offering, but he knows his worth: his family has worked too long and too hard for him to slip up or be taken advantage of.
On “letter to my brudda,” which features a crisp soul sample and shimmering organ-like synths, 21 raps: “I watched everybody turn on my brother like he ain’t have them out here flying jets and fucking bitches.”
A bit later on the cut, during the interlude, 21 explains it as explicitly as ever before: “You know, we be coming from, like, the worst conditions, the worst circumstances/ The trenches, the gutter/ And sometimes we be forced to make decisions that we don’t even wanna make.”
This is American Dream at its best. More often than not, 21 operates in this mode. On “see the real,” chiptune voices and a jerky drum groove provide a spacious backdrop for Savage to bare his soul.
In 2019, 21 Savage was detained by ICE and almost deported from the US, resulting in an ordeal that took nearly four years to resolve.
In October of last year, 21 Savage finally resolved the issues with his immigration status.
In a statement released to HipHopDX, Charles H. Kuck, the Managing Partner for Kuck Baxter LLC — who represents the “Rich Flex” rapper (real name Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph) — said that his client had officially become a permanent resident alien, clearing the way for an epic London homecoming.
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