What Happened to the Streets?

Since breaking through with 2016’s icy <i>Savage Mode</i>, a joint EP between himself and Metro Boomin, the Atlanta-based rapper has countered menace with candour, revealing his story in glimpses between scenes of cold-blooded murder and exorbitant flexing. It’s not that 21 Savage has let his guard down exactly, though on his third solo album, 2024’s <i>american dream</i>, he let go of the pure nihilism of his early work to begin to open up about his family and his past. The 33-year-old rapper’s fourth album, announced just four days before its release, centres around familiar themes—chiefly, trying to make it in a bleak and cutthroat world. On “DOG $HIT”, featuring GloRilla, 21 makes balling out sound sinister, and on “HA”, he turns a supervillain laugh into a hook over a Zaytoven production straight out of the aughts (with a sample of a 2007 Gucci Mane mixtape cut for good measure). But on closing track “I WISH”, with its mournful R. Kelly sample, he imagines twists of fate that might have saved his peers and friends. Among them are Takeoff, Nipsey Hussle, Young Dolph, Lil Keed, Trouble, Pop Smoke, Juice WRLD, Young Scooter and Rich Homie Quan—a list so startlingly long, you start to believe that the world might be as cruel as 21’s songs make it seem.