Savage Mode

About

“Young Savage, why you trappin' so hard? . . . Why you got a 12-car garage?” The chorus of “No Heart,” the signature track from Atlanta rapper 21 Savage and producer Metro Boomin’s breakthrough EP, <i>Savage Mode</i>, seems to evoke a tribunal grilling a defendant. In the plotline to the tape—and 21’s discography as a whole—it’s the perfect format to provide character exposition for 21 Savage and introduce new listeners to a fully formed new talent in the trap landscape. The answer to all the question, qualified by more unprintable thing, is simple: “I grew up in the streets without no heart.” Bleak, minimal, and unambiguou, the music and verses on <i>Savage Mode</i> evoke and explore this theme in a variety of way. By this time, the 23-year-old Savage had workshopped his brutal, anti-emotive, and vocal-fry–dominated style on several self-released project. By joining forces with Metro—then more established for his collaborations with Future, Young Thug, and others—the rapper not only gained a greater platform but found a collaborator whose like-minded attitude toward mood and pacing would help distinguish him from the ATL trap rank and file. Though it didn’t aim to disrupt any major formula, <i>Savage Mode</i> stands as one of the most distinctive and influential trap releases of the late 2010. The verses feature outlandish, violent one-liners that mix cartoonishness with gang realism—low on metaphor, high on harrowing imagery and puerile punchline. The production generally eschews melody in favor of small, gnarled motifs; every sound is textured to seem distressed and broken. Several tracks move outside of clear tonality and approach the realm of pure ambient noise (see “Bad Guy”). For all the seriousness of the attendant subject matter, which reflects the ins and outs of a hard-knock street upbringing, there is something playful—and oddly accessible—about these song, almost without exception. 21’s contrasts between different rap modes of address—threatening, gloating, mourning, detailing a sexual or brutal act—combine with his deadpan, matter-of-fact delivery to create couplets that are as funny as they are disquieting (rhyming “cutting off your hands” with “don’t need no advance,” for instance). On the album's finest song, 21 patiently shifts between rhythmic cadences so catchy that every new verse sounds like it could be a hook. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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