Hip hop is full of villains. There are real life villains like Suge Knight who go around causing trouble by robbing and murdering people. There are artists like MF DOOM who’s close to a comic book villain come to life. He creates these worlds for people to live in including alter egos, blurring the lines between real life and fiction, and concealing his true identity with a mask he never takes off. But 21 Savage exemplifies a villain in his music, his voice menacing enough to put fear into the strongest of people.
21’s not a villain off the record anymore; he’s started multiple free financial literacy campaigns, has his own annual back to school drive for kids in his neighbourhood, and even worked with the mayor of Atlanta to provide free tablets and WIFI to the youth of Atlanta. But in his music, he sounds extremely murderous on almost every song he’s ever made, and this is no exception. His delivery is vile, showing almost no emotion even when he’s saying the grimiest lines imaginable.
All of this carries over to this project, Savage Mode II, which is a sequel to his 2016 mixtape with Metro Boomin. Since that project, Metro has become one of the most in demand and influential producers of the 2010s, and he proves once again on Savage Mode II why he’s held in such high regard. Beats like “Slidin” and “Many Men” are these trap bangers with many levels of trunk-knocking 808s, which others like “RIP Love” and “Rich N**** Shit” feature these slower, almost pretty, trap ballads. There’s even quite a few songs on the project that feature string sections. The one thing that Metro brings to this project that was unexpected though, was to make it feel like a film.
Even though 21 and Metro have been teasing this project for over a year, they only officially announced it four days before it came out. And what did they announce it with, a trailer fit for a blockbuster horror movie with Morgan Freeman doing a voiceover. That vibe continues over to the album, and so does Morgan Freeman. His intro to the project provides one of most cinematic intros to an album I’ve heard this year, and his interlude about snitches and rats is equal parts awesome, hilarious, and sinister. But none of these things would be quite as effective if it weren’t for Metro Boomin layering these beautiful, but threatening instrumentals behind his voice. Hopefully we get a Metro Boomin scored movie in the next few years, because he could do some amazing things with it.
Even though Metro’s production is some of the best of 2020, it wouldn’t be anything without 21 Savage’s malicious vocals. His rapping ability has improved tenfold since the first project. In the first one, his voice and flow was extremely emotionless, arguably to a fault. While his flow still doesn’t switch up the same way JID or Kendrick does, he’s energetic while still being able to have the emotionlessness that someone who’s seen the things he has usually has.
While 21 did get a bit more personal at moments on this album, there are still a plethora of murder bars that show the horrors of he’s experienced. Lines like “We don’t shoot at houses, we hit brains, y’all n*****s lame. Fell in love with them choppa sounds, Waka Flocka Flame,'' and “We ain’t never throwin white flags. Gotta get smoke when the bros die,” show how numb he’s gotten to gun violence by growing up in gang culture of Atlanta. It provides a peak into the nihilistic view that one gets from experiencing these real life horrors.
He does switch up the subject matter a few times though, mainly to the topic of love. “Mr. Right Now” with Drake is a quality track with one of the catchier hooks on the project and Drake weirdly exposing that he used to date SZA. “RIP Love” crawls along with this leisurely beat and 21 showing his nihilistic attitude toward love, claiming all over the song that he gave up on it a long time ago. The outro to the project shows 21 reflecting on his life from a slightly more optimistic perspective, at least compared to the rest of this project.
21 Savage and Metro Boomin came through with arguably some of their best work ever on this project. The rapping was elevated from where 21 used to be, Metro showed more styles to his production that he had never shown before, and the songwriting was tighter and more consistent on this project than ever before. Will this be remembered as a classic project for decades to come, not likely. But will this project provide some great distraction music for the upcoming fall and winter, absolutely. “So until next time, stay in savage mode, because anything else would be too damn civilized”.
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