RAPPER’S ROOTS STUN FANS
Friends, family vocal in support of 21 Savage as he faces deportation
LOS ANGELES It was a shock for fans when U.S. immigration agents in Georgia took 21 Savage into custody.
It was an even bigger shock to learn he had been an immigrant in the first place.
The Grammy-nominated rapper and his music are so deeply associated with Atlanta that the notion he was actually born in England and brought to the U.S. at age 12 felt downright bizarre.
Scores of surprised tweets came after his arrest Sunday. Memes bloomed that some called cruel under the circumstances, including one of him dressed as a Buckingham Palace guard, along with an old video of him talking in a mock English accent about tea and crumpets.
“It seems so outlandish that the prototypical Atlanta rapper is not from Atlanta,” said Samuel Hine, a writer and editor at GQ who researched 21 Savage and spent a day with him for a profile in the magazine last year.
“I think that’s why so many people were sort of making fun of him, and making memes.”
By all accounts, few knew his real birthplace, and it certainly wasn’t publicly known. His accent gave no indication, and his birth name, Shayaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, could have come from any number of birthplaces.
“I certainly heard no whispers challenging his accepted backstory,” Hine said.
Abraham-Joseph was detained in a targeted operation in the Atlanta area and put in deportation proceedings, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement spokesman Bryan Cox said.
Abraham-Joseph’s lawyer said U.S. immigration officials have known his status at least since 2017, when he applied for a new visa. That application is pending, and his lawyers say he should not be detained. Both sides agree that Abraham-Joseph came to the U.S. as a child in 2005, and he stayed on after his visa expired in 2006.
“As a minor, his family overstayed their work visas. He, like almost two million other children, was left without legal status through no fault of his own,” Kuck Baxter Immigration, the law firm representing Abraham-Joseph, said Monday, adding he now has U.S. citizen children of his own.
Abraham-Joseph then spent his teenage years in Atlanta and his image and later his music became defined by the city’s distinctive hip-hop culture. Even the 21 in his name is a reference to the block where he lived there.
“Him growing up in Atlanta is a pretty fundamental part of his story,” Hine said. “His identity is so rooted in his Atlanta sound, his Atlanta crew.”
Abraham-Joseph was truthful when he rapped about his youthful exploits in Atlanta, including run-ins with the law over guns and drugs, Hine said. He just left out anything that had come before that.
A pair of mixtapes in 2015 made his star rise quickly in the Atlanta underground. Collaborations with Atlanta artists including Metro Boomin and Offset of the rap group Migos raised his profile.
He signed with Epic Records and made a pair of high-charting solo albums.
He collaborated with Toronto rapper Drake, Cardi B and Post Malone, whose song with 21 Savage, Rockstar, is nominated for two Grammys at Sunday’s awards ceremony in Los Angeles.
For many who love 21 Savage, surprise about his arrest quickly gave way to outrage.
Offset tweeted that he was “PRAYING FOR MY DAWG. ALL THE MEMES ... AINT FUNNY HIS FAMILY DEPENDING ON HIM.”
Rapper Vince Staples joined many others in tweeting, Free 21!
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors established an online petition to stop his deportation that was fast gaining signatories.
On Monday, his mother, Heather Joseph, shamed those who cracked jokes at his expense.
“It’s a damn shame when we live in a world where people thrive off and feed negative energy … laugh at others who are going through real life challenges, fighting for their lives & freedom … sick of it! However, in the end people will see! This too shall come to pass. Free 21 Savage,” Joseph wrote in her Instagram story.
Singer Demi Lovato felt some of the anger when she tweeted Sunday that “So far 21 savage memes have been my favourite part of the Super Bowl.”
She later clarified that she wasn’t laughing “at anyone getting deported.”
Lovato has since deactivated her Twitter account.
While it’s not clear if it had anything to do with his own status, Abraham-Joseph did just recently address the subject of immigration and detention. Last week on the Tonight Show, he added a verse to his song A Lot that includes the line, “been through some things, but I couldn’t imagine my kids stuck at the border.”