21 Savage is one of the biggest rappers in the game right now,
but he had a wild come up in the streets of Atlanta.
From getting kicked out of school for gun possession,
to getting shot six times during a robbery,
this is the crazy come up of 21 Savage.
21 was born in London but moved to Atlanta with his mom when he was seven.
They lived in run-down apartments with his four brothers, six sisters,
and his mama’s boyfriend,
and he learned how to scrap at a young age.
He told the Fader “My mama used to get in fights with n****s’ mamas.
Our whole family would be fighting they whole family.”
One time when he was 12,
a woman from the neighborhood accused 21 of spray-painting her car
and the situation got crazy.
He said “Next thing I know,
my mama come through doing like a hundred in the parking lot.
She ran up on her ass.
My mama small as hell,
that lady was thick as a mother****** -
she goddamn chomped that lady ass.
I done broke some scissors, turned it into a little knife,
and was standing out there like ‘Don’t you touch my mama!’”
21 had issues with bullies at school,
so he brought a gun for protection but ended up getting expelled
when someone snitched on him.
He spent some time in juvy,
then his mom sent him to a different county for high school.
But it ain’t last long before 21 dropped out and hopped off the porch.
He said “Next thing you know, it was weed, weed, weed. Crack. And robberies.”
21 and his homies would break into houses
and take anything they could sell.
They knocked on the doors first to check if someone was home,
but his homie Chucky said
“sometimes we had to shoot our way out.
Some people sleep hard.”
In 2014,
21 got hit with drug charges after the cops pulled his homie over.
21 was in the passenger seat when they found 22 grams of weed,
two guns, 89 pills, and a scale.
Around the same time,
Savage got the iconic dagger tattoo between his eyes.
The dagger is for his younger brother Tayman.
Tayman had the tattoo first,
but after he was killed in a drug deal that went wrong
- 21 got the same one to honor him.
He also has a tattoo with the names Larry and Johnny,
his two best friends who were both tragically murdered.
Larry, Johnny, and 21 was real close
and 21 says Larry’s mom basically raised all of them.
But in 2011,
Larry and his mother were both killed.
Then a couple years later,
Johnny got chipped right in front of 21.
On Savage’s 21st birthday, he was in the whip with Johnny.
It ain’t clear exactly what went down,
but allegedly it was a drug deal that turned into a robbery
and Johnny got shot in the head.
21 shot back and ended up getting hit six times.
When a reporter asked him if he thought he was going to die,
21 said “Yeah. A whole lot of blood loss. A whole lot of blood loss.
But I guess they say your adrenaline be rushing.
So you don’t really feel it when it’s going on.”
In 2016, Savage went on the Breakfast Club and told them
I know when you make certain decisions like,
you gotta know certain stuff gon’ happen.
You know what I'm saying.
That's real.
I know what comes with this life….
and I can't do nothing but accept it if I'm living it
You know what I'm saying.
I'm robbing and shooting people like its,
One day somebody gonna try and rob me or somebody gonna shoot me.
I always knew that, you know what I'm saying, but.
It’s just messed up because I lost
like my other half, of my heart. You know what I'm saying like,
for real, for real like.
When Johnny died,
21 knew he had to switch up how he moved
so he hopped in the booth and started rapping.
He told GQ “I had to change.
I was a wild n****.
And I knew one day karma was gonna come back around.
So when I got shot,
I was like ‘alright, this is my sign.
I’m getting a second chance or some s***.''
He dropped his first track in 2014,
and by time he dropped his debut mixtape in 2015,
21 was already popping in the city!
He followed the first project up with a Sonny Digital collab a few months later.
Then in December 2015
he dropped his third tape of the year
and was picking up some real momentum in the rap game.
In June 2016,
21 was part of XXL’s freshman class,
and a month later he dropped his collab tape with Metro Boomin
called Savage Mode.
Savage Mode blew up and put 21 on the map,
and the track X ended up going platinum!
21 has pretty much stayed out of industry drama ever since he came into the game,
but around the same time in 2016
he started sending shots back and forth with Tyga over Kylie Jenner.
It all started when 21 posted a picture of Kylie
and captioned it with a bunch of heart eye emojis.
Fans start clowning Tyga over it
and commenting knife emojis on his IG.
When a dude with TMZ ran into 21 on the street and asked him about Kylie,
21 said he would “tear that ass up.”
Hey uh,
I heard you had a thing for Kylie bro.
Tear that ass up.
Then Kylie leaked part of a diss track
where Tyga called out 21 and said
“Why you got one car in a 12-car garage?
Sucking **** for a Ferrari, don’t forget to lick the balls.”
The line was talking about the Ferrari Drake gave 21 for his birthday.
21 responded by posting another picture of Kylie with the caption
“Shoutout to my boss b****** wifing n****s.”
Then during a show, 21 said
“So what’s up with all that Instagram s***, Tyga?”
Then a video started going around with 21 saying
“I’ma kill your b**** ass.
I got mother******* money to get,
p**** to f***,
and n****s to kill and now you’re on my list.”
It sounded like a serious threat,
especially coming from a street rapper like 21.
But he hopped on Twitter to let everyone know it was an old video
and the situation had gotten out of hand.
He wrote “it ain’t dat serious
mf posting old ass videos this s*** done went to far
it was funny at first.”
Luckily 21 and Tyga squashed the beef before it got too serious.
When 21 went on the Breakfast Club in 2017
he said “I mean, I was out of line.
And he was out of line too.”
We was at the Migos and the Future concert in LA.
I had came out with Quavo and them so
He was like man f*** that s*** that s*** was bulls***,
we need to do a song.
And um, he took my number.
S*** that was it.
After the Tyga beef was over,
21 got right back on his grind.
He was only rapping for a couple years,
but he was already one of the hottest new artists in the game.
He dropped his debut album Issa Album in 2017,
then hit number one on the Hot 100
when he hopped on Post Malone’s track Rockstar.
Within a few years,
21 went from getting into shootouts to putting out platinum hits.
He told Hip Hop Revival
“Hip hop got me all the way out the street.
It calmed me down, I ain’t wild like that no more.”
But even though he left the streets behind,
in 2018 he made headlines for flashing a gun at a pool party.
TMZ posted a video showing 21
pulling out a gun after a fight broke out right next to him.
21 was at an annual event called the Big Ass Pool Party in Atlanta
when a group of dudes crashed it and came through the back.
According to people who were there,
someone from the group of party crashers hit on a girl who was with 21’s crew.
Once the situation started turning up,
one of the party crashers allegedly pulled they burner out
and that’s when one of 21’s homies handed him a gun.
Luckily nobody started shooting,
but one of the party crashers got knocked out.
The cops showed up and shut the party down, but nobody was arrested.
Later in 2018,
21 dropped his second album I Am > I Was.
The album popped off and had features from huge artists like Travis Scott,
Post Malone, J. Cole, Offset, and more.
And the single A Lot hit number 12 on the Hot 100
and earned 21 his first Grammy.
After dropping the album,
21 reached a new level.
But before he got to celebrate the success,
he got arrested on immigration charges and taken into custody by ICE!
On February 3rd, 2019
21 was riding around with his cousin Young Nudy and two homies
when they got pulled over.
He told Good Morning America
“I was just driving.
And I just seen guns and blue lights.
And then I was in the back of a car and I was gone.”
The cops said they was after Nudy and the two other dudes in the car
for violating Georgia’s gang act,
but 21 says they was targeting him.
After they booked him,
ICE put out a statement that said
he was a “United Kingdom national who is unlawfully present in the U.S.”
Fans was shocked when the news broke.
21 always claimed Atlanta,
and nobody had a clue he wasn’t actually born there.
A rep from ICE said
“His whole public persona is false.
He actually came to the US. from the UK as a teen and overstayed his visa.”
So when 21 savage was 12,
he flew back to London for his uncle’s funeral and stayed for a month.
Then he came to America on an H-4 Visa,
which allegedly expired a year later.
21 applied for a U Visa back in 2017
but his application was never processed.
Luckily he wasn’t deported,
but the case is still pending.
He’s able to travel anywhere in the US,
but he can’t leave the country until everything gets settled.
What’s wild about his immigration case
is that 21 has damn near spent his entire life in Atlanta.
He says he barely remembers the UK
because he was so young when he came over with his mom.
Plus, 21 always been connected to the community
and he’s known for giving back and helping out anyone he can.
During the pandemic,
21 gave $25K to #ATLSTRONG to help families in Atlanta.
He also started #BankAccountAtHome,
which was designed to help students learn how to take care of their money
and plan for the future.
He said “Now that times are hard as ever during this pandemic
and so many families are affected across the country,
I feel it’s more important than ever to give our next generation of leaders
the tools to succeed in life.”
21 also hosts an annual back to school drive
where he’s given out school supplies
to thousands of kids in the area he came up in.
He also gave out $100K in scholarships to students all over the country.
21 has had a wild come up surrounded by death and violence,
but instead of just looking out for himself he linked up with an anti-gun group in Atlanta
to try and end the violence.
A lot of rappers blow up and leave everyone behind,
but 21 has done a lot for his community.
It’s not clear how long it will take to sort out the situation with ICE,
but hopefully 21 beats the case quick
so he can focus on dropping hits and helping out his community.