21 Savage

Shayaa Bin Abraham-Joseph was born on October 22, 1992 in Atlanta, Georgia and is an American rapper. He was raised in the east part of Atlanta. Shayaa had it bad as a kid. His father was a drugsdealer and his uncle was shot dead in front of Shayaa’s house. His younger brother Quantivayus, also named Tayman, was killed on March 19, 2014. In the course of the years more than 8 friends of Shayaa have been killed. His mother gave stability to Shayaa’s life and took care of him. At the age of 14, Shayaa gets involved in crime as he gets in touch with weed. He started dealing drugs and commits robberies. At school Shayaa gets involved in an argument with a boy. He decides to take a gun to school and wants to teach him a lesson by holding him under gunpoint. Shayaa was kicked off school immediately and no other school wanted to register him anymore. Yet, his mother returned him to the same school and het beated up the boy.

After that he did not return to school anymore and started to earn even more money selling drugs, enough to buy his mother a car and an appartment. Together with his little brother Tayman they joined the gang 21 who have an affinity with The Bloods. Despite that, Shayaa has a lot of friends who are associated with The Crips. According to Shayaa, that rivalry is outdated and the gangs have more friendly relations: they are all on the same boat.  Shayaa and his little brother have a knife tattoo between their thumb and indexfinger, just like Tony Montana. Later his brother took a knife tattoo on his forehead as well.

Shayaa started to practice rapping with an old microphone and an outdated computer. His brother breaks and enters a house and stole a better computer for Shayaa. At his 21th birthday, Shayaa, tiogether with his best friend Jhonny, was hit 6 times in a shower of bullets.  Jhonny died but Shayaa barely survived. He was administered Percocet painkillers to which he is still addicted. When his little brother was murdered a year later, Shayaa took the same knife tattoo on his forehead as his brother Tayman. Shayaa tried to find a way to escape the hood and knows this can be done via rapping and basketball.  He decided to try rapping and takes on the name Savage, after he has named his Instagram account like that. His name eventually becomes 21 Savage: the number 21 refers to his birthday when he was hit 6 times by bullets. He stands out quickly in his hometown Atlanta, a genuine trap town. His sound is Dark Trap and his shaky and intoxicating energy take on. His style is very unique and his voice shows no emotion at all. The lyrics of his tracks are very shocking, radical and often sad. Despite all this, 21 Savage is a mainstream rapper and a big name in the United States. Until now, 21 Savage has released 2 mixtapes: The Slaughter Tape and Slaughter King. His EP Savage Mode brought him international success.

On Spotify 6.9 million people listen to the rapper every month, bringing him to position 193 in the world. His track ”X” had 139 million streams and is his most-streamed track on Spotify.

The tracks I like best are:





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