I wanted to do something different so we got you at this place - The Sword and the Stone.
21 man, I want to introduce you to my man Tony, the blacksmith. He runs this joint.
He gon' show us how to make a knife today.
Knife is very important.
I know it became a meme.
But it really has special meaning to you, right?
It's a lot of deep shit behind it.
Like, that I really can't talk about.
You made many knives before?
Nah.
We were watching 'Scarface' when we came up with it.
Originally it was supposed to go on your right hand.
My little brother Tayman, he just went ahead and got it on his face.
When my little brother died, I was like, "Shit I'm finna go get mine."
So you got any questions for what we're going to do here?
We finna make a knife.
Man we had to do something real different.
Hell yeah.
This different.
Your next interview gotta be in outer space or something.
Your birthday, on 2013, I wanted to get to understand why these events helped
shape who you are.
It's damn near like, when you ask me that question, you making me relive the moment.
Niggas throw me in boxes with everybody and everybody else like the mumble rap shit and
just all this other shit.
But it's like - shit I been through is real shit.
The shit I'm rapping about is real shit.
This ain't no gimmick.
Nigga I got shot six times.
My best friend died in front of me on my birthday.
This shit is real shit.
The rapping is easy for me but I feel like a lot of people don't really understand me
'cause they don't really come from what I come from.
You know, we see it go viral. When you did your interview and said, "It's not a cross.
Issa knife."
It becomes a meme.
Does that stuff bother you or do you get it?
Do you know this is how the internet works?
How do you feel when you see these memes passing around?
At first I ain't get it 'cause I was like, "I just said issa knife."
Like we don't say "It's a" we say "Issa."
Now everybody use it.
Niggas making songs out of it and everything.
I mean I get it.
It's really cool 'cause they taking shit that's pain for me and they making it cool to society.
So it's really a good thing.
Man, does it trip you out now?
The amount that you're into man.
You know, when somebody - let's say Drake reaches out to you for "Sneakin'."
And that was a big moment.
You guys shot the video.
That trip you out?
Man all this shit trippin' me out.
I'm a regular nigga from the hood, man.
I swear to god on my kids.
I'm a regular dude.
Drake?
Nigga, Future?
Every artist I ever worked with that's famous - nigga I'm a fan.
And hold that down.
On "No Advance" one line stood out to me.
When was the moment that you realized that you made it off the block?
Shit.
When I stopped living there.
When I got a condo I was like, "Shit I made it off the block.
I ain't staying in the hood no more, shit."
I ain't got to listen to police sirens.
I ain't got to worry about police pulling up on me when I'm standing outside with my gun.
I ain't got to worry about, "Damn, do I got to leave my gun in the house today?
'Cause the police hot."
I saw an interview with you on The Breakfast Club that was intriguing.
I'm spiritual.
I'm Ifa. My religion.
You know, the way you articulated on The Breakfast Club, it really feels like a guiding principle
on how you live your life.
If you do something wrong, you gotta pay for that.
Anything you do in life, you gotta pay for that.
So with Ifa it's like, my ancestors guide me through life.
I cook for my ancestors every week.
I give them water every week.
I talk to them every week.
Paying respects to everything.
Respecting everything around you.
If I kill a nigga, right?
It might not have been wrong.
I might've been defending myself.
But I still gotta go pay for that.
I really can't talk about how you pay for it but you just gotta pay for it.
Hot!
Who did you really vibe to when you was just out there living your life?
Who was the soundtrack to your life before you started making soundtracks to other lives?
It's like, different times of my life it was different people.
So I say about 13, 14 I was probably listening to a lot of Wayne.
A lot of Gucci Mane.
Jay-Z and Nas.
You know, the mainstream people but the Atlanta underground shit too.
But as I started to get older, I started to listen to shit that really matched what I
had going on.
So it was a point in time where Alley Boy came out and he wasn't rapping about nothing
but robbing and shit that's what we were doing.
So we were riding around listening to Alley Boy.
Then it was a point in time where niggas were dying in my life.
Shit, I'm listening to Boosie and Webbie.
Shit, he going through the same thing I'm going through and the way he talking about
it's like, "Damn nigga.
Damn I just went through this shit.
Like, I feel that shit."
Now I'm like on some old R&B shit.
What's your old R&B?
I wanna know what's on that playlist man.
Shit.
Xscape, Keith Sweat, Destiny's Child, Beyonce, mothafuckin' New Edition, Silk, H-Town, Next.
Shit hotter than a motherfucker.
What that'll do to somebody head?
Oh, somebody's head?
It would explode like a watermelon.
Off one hit?
One hit?
Yeah.
Yeah I mean...
You gon' let me use this shop to bring a couple heads through here?
Yeah, sure let me see.
What do we got?
Somebody really really influential in your career man and I met this brother a long time
ago when he was producing for Gorilla Zoe - Sonny Digital.
Shit. Sonny really just like, he really held me down as far as like, "Focus on rap.
Focus on rap."
When I first met Sonny I had did some songs but I wasn't really like on no rap shit.
I was just hanging around other rappers.
So Sonny really like, "Pull up to the house man.
Let's record."
We used to record at the house everyday and he used to tell me like - 'cause I used to
be like, "Damn, when the show money gon' come?"
I'm thinking I just make a song and I start getting show money.
And he like, "Man, that shit gon' come.
You gotta just wait."
I heard he gave you your first mic too?
First mic.
He sent me a little template so I could record myself and shit.
That really where I recorded all of my original first shit like 'The Slaughter Tape' and 'Slaughter
King' and all that shit was really in my mama house.
They fucked my shit up though.
They shot the house up.
The bullet went through the Mac.
The Mac laptop.
So all the shit fucked up but I had that shit on the drive so I still got all my old songs and shit.
But like that's why I had to stop using that computer.
That why I started going to Sonny house.
And then you hooked up with another big producer, Metro Boomin.
Shit Metro, I really met Metro the same time I met Sonny.
All the producers real got a close knit circle.
Shit if you fuckin' with him, all of 'em fuckin' with you.
You here buggin' Sonny like, "When the show money coming?
When the show money coming?"
By the time 'Savage Mode' dropped that show money...
Yeah, that shit was in.
Did that tape feel different in the process of making it?
Or were you kind of going through your normal motions?
That shit took so long.
Man we probably got four other 'Savage Modes.'
'Cause we was recording that shit for a year and a half.
That shit was supposed to come out before 'Slaughter King' came out.
It's certain songs that I was like, "Man, this shit whack as fuck.
I don't want that shit on there."
Like "No Heart."
I wasn't finna put "No Heart" on there.
Metro just did what he did to the shit.
Sent it back to me and I was like, "Alright.
This shit sound cool."
And shit it came out and everybody was just like, "Young Savage, why you..."
And all that shit and I was like, "Okay. Shit, what's up?"
I feel like the gang just don't respect us like the 'posed to.
Y'all want everybody in the rap gang to rap like each other.
Like you 'posed to have lyrical niggas over here.
'Posed to have the happy, you know what I'm saying, dancing music.
You 'posed to have the southern shit like that's just how it's 'posed to go.
So you just talking about a balance?
Respect all the music the same.
Just because a nigga is not lyrical that don't mean that it's not a good song and it's not
good music.
If everybody was lyrical then everybody's songs would sound the same.
That's why you got hard rock, soft rock, country music.
You got different types of rock just like you got different types of rap.
Let's talk about trap music.
What's trap music?
You know the first time I ever heard somebody say "trap" on a record...
What's the trap?
Was Outkast.
The trap is, as I understand it, where you trap out of, right?
Where you hustle out of.
Aight, you got a trap house right?
It's a house that niggas pay they rent on, sell drugs out of.
It's not a bando.
A bando is an abandoned apartment.
Niggas could say, "I'm in the trap."
Trap could be a block outside.
Nigga could say, "I'm in the trap" and be in a trap house.
Nigga could say, "Shit.
I'm finna go bust a trap."
Trap music is a reflection of the trap.
Niggas getting shoot outs in the trap.
Niggas die in the trap.
Dope smokers smoke dope in the trap.
Bitches prostitute in the trap.
Bitches called the strip club the trap.
Trap is your hustle.
If it ain't reflecting what's going on in the trap, it ain't trap music.
Regardless if it has the 808s.
Kanye West did a album with 808s on it.
'808s & Heartbreak' right?
That wasn't trap music, was it?
Nope.
Jeezy is trap music.
Gucci is trap music.
And far as now, I'm trap music.
But one thing about you, definitely self-made, 'cause you came in and you financed
this whole thing.
Yeah. Out my pocket.
Yourself.
Yeah, I was ready to go in there and get a bag.
Shit.
Rapping is just another form of dope.
This like the dope game now.
It's where the money at.
Ain't really no money in the dope like that no more.
When you give a savage money, you just make him a monster.
I'ma apply the same hustling mentality I got from the street in this rap shit.
Shit look hard.
What do you think is the most common misconception about 21 Savage?
Motherfuckers don't know the lingo.
I really feel like I got - my core fans, they gon' know 'cause I been saying shit.
But like, I got a lot of fans too they just jumped on when I got - when shit started going
crazy like "X Bitch" and "No Heart" and shit like that.
But you really just gotta listen to me to really know like what the hell is he talking about?
Like on "All The Smoke."
"What is he really talking about?"
I feel like your next move might be your best move.
We just gon' drop good music and she what it do.
I don't base my shit off of, "Oh I know this gon' do this."
Like I'm just gon' do my songs and put it out.
If they love it they love it.
If they hate it - fuck 'em.
I'm ready to stab.
What's the message that you want people to - 'cause you not exactly telling these kids
to go out there and do that.
Nah, I'm just speaking on my life.
What I see, What I go through.
My past issues, my current issues.
So now it's like, "Dang he got a Bentley truck."
You gon' hear me say I got a Bentley truck.
"He got a Ferrari."
You gon' hear me say that I bought a Ferrari.
"His partner just died," you gon' hear it.
It's just me.
It's what I'm going through.
What I've been through.
It really ain't a guidebook on, "Okay kids, this how you live life."
But I imagine, it can inspire some people.
"If 21 did it, I could do it."
Yeah. That's the best part.
I wanted to touch people but I don't want it to encourage people to do wrong.
I want to encourage them to take they pain and turn it into joy.
Issa knife bitch.