Grant Rindner Rap music has always had a complicated relationship with the American dream. Through rose-colored glasses, the artists, producers and executives who find success in hip-hop often embody a by-the-bootstraps ethos, but it tends to be the result of lifelong efforts to grapple with and overcome a darker subtext of systemic oppression and cultural adversity.
For Atlanta rap superstar 21 Savage, the phrase “American Dream”–the title of his long-awaited third solo album–has an additional undercurrent.
The name plays both sides: the aspiration to success, of course, but also as a reference to the highly-publicized 2020 arrest by U.S.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement that led to the revelation he was actually born in the U.K. and emigrated to the United States as a child.
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