21 Savage skulks through verses like a villain in a slasher flick. On the cover of his Slaughter King mixtape he sported a hockey mask like Jason. His mixtape titles all evoke horror gore. His verses are built around heart-racing, hair-bristling anticipation. He preys on victims and terrorizes them, using intimidation and sadism, then jolts through quick shots of graphic violence narrated with stoned apathy. His songs are striking in their bluntness, breathless and macabre.
Many rap marksmen ground their shootout confessions in the context of social inequality, making the distinction between hood survivalism and outright barbarism. 21 doesn’t care. He doesn’t dissociate murder from morality. He’s the self-professed Bad Guy praying to his Glock and his carbon. Alongside Metro Boomin, he refined his menace into a sting with Savage Mode, succinct in sound and ruthless vision, a 30-minute joyride inside the mind of Bishop from Juice.
Capitalizing on the momentum, 21 Savage has returned with his debut, again accompanied by Metro, this time with assistance from Southside, Zaytoven, DJ Mustard, Jake One, Pi’erre Bourne (of “Magnolia” fame), and more. Issa Album, named for an interview segment gone viral, attempts to balance newfound fame with deep-rooted realness. He hasn’t softened, but he’s fixated more on riches than body counts. When he isn’t numbing his pain with the money, he’s struggling to put words to his emotions. 21 spends more time dealing with the living (his crew, his boo, and the girlfriends of rivals, specifically), and the feelings they impart. “I made it off the block, bitch I beat the statistics,” he rapped on Savage Mode, and Issa revels in the freedoms afforded by new money. It’s more ambitious, venturing down previously unexplored paths. But 21 simply doesn’t have the required finesse to cover more ground with nuance.
With each passing release, 21’s deadpan muttering gets less effective. The imagery, which has always been somewhat lacking, is even more flat on Issa, the writing more clumsy. “Bank Account,” “Dead People,” and “Money Convo” all make the same banal comment about an increased cash flow, simply acknowledging the excess and enjoying counting the cash; he could’ve gotten the same result recording a money machine processing bills. Whenever he extends himself he comes up short (as on “Numb,” which aims to be a triumphant rags-to-riches revelation but somehow never musters a lick of enthusiasm). It isn’t difficult to draw a line from songs like “FaceTime” and “Special” back to Savage Mode’s “Feel It,” but his emotionless inflections do significantly less for attempted bando ballads this time around. On the latter, as he continuously reiterates how in his feelings he is and how special she is in the plainest possible terms, it feels empty. “The internet won’t help you understand me,” he raps on “Famous,” seemingly insulating himself from criticism. But the quip is absurd coming from someone so easy to read.
Great production can hide many sins and on Issa, the hottest beatmakers in rap come to 21’s aid. Zaytoven fills a pair of Metro boomers with his signature piano embellishments, but Issa is highlighted by the En Vogue-warping “Thug Life” and the flute frenzy on “Baby Girl.” Unlikely bunkmates Jake One and Southside team up for gripping oddball productions; “Dead People” sounds like compressed and inverted Super Mario Bros. background music. 21 produced “Bank Account” himself, and its clean minimalism is one of the surprises. The others come in the form of more evocative writing and an unexpected guest. On “Nothing New,” he carefully surveys the streets around him. “Police gunned his brother down, this shit too hard to handle/Loading up his chopper, he gon’ show ‘em black lives matter,” he raps in a rare showing of empathy. “Whole Lot” gets juiced by uncredited ad-libs from Young Thug, which sprinkle the margins with his charm. “Close My Eyes” balances killer coldness with survivor’s remorse. 21’s admission, “I see dead bodies when I close my eyes,” can be read as a violent fantasy or the haunting price of taking life. He is so compelling when he digs deeper into his psyche this way, providing more than superficiality, but there aren’t enough of these moments to sustain Issa Album, which is as basic as its title.
