Source: Club Shay Shay / Youtube
A few weeks ago Shannon Sharpe broke the internet and had social media on fire when he had Katt Williams let off a banana clip and air out the entertainment industry to start off 2024, but the man has done a few other pretty in-depth interviews with other celebrities and this time around he got to sit down with Atlanta’s current favorite son, 21 Savage.
Sitting down with the NFL Hall of Famer turned sports analyst turned entertainment journalist, 21 Savage opens up about his childhood and the impact his struggles had on his growth on the road to rap superstardom. A story so intriguing that everyone truly thought he was dropping a movie about his life.
From his experiences as a young immigrant from the UK getting accustomed to life in Atlanta to how getting shot shifted his focus to making music, 21 Savage gets into detail about many aspects of his life that many may not have been familiar with.
Here are the 8 things we learned from 21 Savage on Club Shay Shay.
Talking about when he first moved to Atlanta from London when he was 6 years old, 21 Savage says that his mother was actually coming to visit from friends in the Big Peach and wasn’t actually planning on staying for good. Ultimately, they ended up living here which almost ended up with 21 being deported back to the UK when the Trump administration was cracking down on illegal immigrants during his run as President.
21 Savage says he got into a fight on the first day of elementary school because of his accent. He said after he beat the kid up, everyone started calling him “taekwondo kid” because he kicked a lot during the fight (LMAO).
While he may not seem it due to his facial tattoos and G’d up demeanor, 21 says he was actually a good student in school and even won a spelling bee and math competition in elementary school and got straight A’s. Who would’ve thought? Still, he knew he couldn’t go to college and do other things because he was an immigrant and fell off in his studies knowing his ceiling would only be so high. Ultimately he ended up getting kicked out of school for bringing a gun to school.
Talking about his relationship with his father, 21 says that though he wasn’t there for him as a child, his father was a good dad to his other siblings who lived in the London, so he can’t call him a “bad” daddy. But it wasn’t until his little brother was killed in 2020 that he spoke to his father after 15 years of non-contact. Though he eventually forgave him for not being there, Savage says they still don’t talk because of “things he did as an adult that rubbed me the wrong way.”
Explaining why he tried football; Savage says he had to due to his probation which stated he had to participate in extracurricular activities in school. But because his mother couldn’t come up with the money to pay the dues, he only played one season in 9th grade and only hit the field three times.
Though he says that the older cats used to give him a dollar here and there to spit a few bars and even made a few songs with his homies as a young’n, 21 Savage says he didn’t really start taking rap seriously until after he got shot on his 21st birthday. That’s when he started putting money into his grind and now 10 years later and he’s one of the biggest names in the Hip-Hop game.
With many music artists selling their music catalogues for tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, 21 Savage says he would consider doing the same down the line unless he somehow ends up becoming a billionaire.
Keeping it a buck about the influence that Gucci Mane had on him growing up, 21 admits that the beef between Gucci and Young Jeezy had him hating Jeezy hard. “I used to be like ‘F*ck Jeezy! East side! Gucci!’” The revalation came after 21 left Jeezy off his Top 5 rappers from The A list. Of course Gucci Mane was up in his Mount Rushmore though.
8 Things We Learned from 21 Savage on Club Shay Shay was originally published on hiphopwired.com
