21 Savage has been on a press campaign to promote his and Drake’s new album Her Loss for the past couple of weeks. The tour appears to be doing double duty as a shade campaign, though, as he’s found ways to annoy both fans of hip-hop greats like Nas and his own contemporaries, such as fellow XXL Freshman Kodak Black. After saying Nas “isn’t relevant” and that he’d “smoke” Kodak in a Verzuz hits battle, fans of both protested loudly on Twitter, prompting him to wonder, “Where all y’all fans be at when these n****s drop albums?” Savage, indeed.
Where all y’all fans be at when these niggas drop albums
— Saint Laurent Don (@21savage) November 10, 2022
While Nas has yet to respond, instead focusing on encouraging his successors not to fight over being the best, Kodak had time this week, posting a response on Instagram. “Homie, that ain’t gangsta,” he wrote. “You n****s know what I done been thru in this shit! Anddd you n****s had a whole consistent run with no hiccups fr and yall 30 years old plusss! Im a yung n**** doing this shit since I came in the game I was in and out of jail! And yall still aint really doing nun to where I gotta catch up. I’m doing pretty damn good for myself still like I ain’t never been nowhere! Imagined if I didn’t though. But let’s see how this sh*t go now that I been home and I’m consistent wit this sh*t.”
He’s … got a point. He has been “in and out of jail,” as he puts it, although to be fair, most of that was his fault. That’s just what happens when you are accused of sexual assault, burp your way out of court-mandated anger management (given in lieu of jail time), and try to transport guns across international borders (he’s also got a new slew of drug charges to deal with after receiving a pardon from Trump). Granted, Kodak hasn’t had too many mentor figures but considering his habit of lashing out anytime someone offered to play that role, again, most of this is on him.
Plus, it’s not like 21 has had the smoothest ride either. For the past few years, he’s lived under threat of deportation over an expired visa, curtailing his own ability to travel for work and losing a significant amount of tour time to his own lengthy detention in ICE custody. For what it’s worth, though, his last solo album, I Am > I Was debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 131,000 equivalent units, winning a Grammy Award for the hit single “A Lot,” so from a pure mass appeal standpoint, it’s easy to see why he feels the way he does.