For a few years, 21 Savage has been the most notable feature artist in the rap scene. A huge influx of artists bringing in 21 Savage started when Drake released “Jimmy Cooks” in 2022 in his album Honestly, Nevermind. The track featured 21 Savage and brought in a lot of praise as well as listeners. While the rapper from Atlanta had his time to shine as a feature in previous tracks, such as “Rockstar” by Post Malone, “Jimmy Cooks” highlighted the best of 21 Savage. The song with Drake paired well with 21 Savage’s most recent album, Savage Mode II produced by Metro Boomin. However, the success of Drake and 21 Savage’s collaboration was overextended.
In 2022 after Honestly, Nevermind, Drake and 21 Savage released their first collaborative album, Her Loss. While the album gave the public tracks, such as “Rich Flex,” “Spin Bout U,” and “Major Distribution,” the album fell short of its potential. My biggest critique of Her Loss is the lack of consistency in the album. Four songs did not feature 21 Savage and only one did not include Drake, and the flow of music was inconsistent. Despite these critiques, the substance of 21 Savage’s elements of Her Loss did not falter, though the quality reigned below the artists’ “Jimmy Cooks” and 21 Savage’s most recent album.
From there, artists have sought out 21 Savage to advance the success of their tracks. Burna Boy, BabyDrill, Travis Scott, Young Nudy, Nas, and DJ Khaled among others have been a few artists to reel in 21 Savage. However, 21 Savage’s features in their songs overpowered the quality of the main artist.
Due to this as well as how frequent and expected a 21 Savage feature is, the excitement and anticipation for his features have faded. The rapper’s abilities are being wrung out. His quality of rap no longer needs to exceed expectations and it is more likely to find one or two impressive lines rather than feel attached to the whole part. There is no longer anything special about 21 Savage’s features as artists continue to abuse the viewership that comes with having “(feat. 21 Savage).”
The era of notable 21 Savage features is dying, and it is something the rap world is not adapting to. His features became most prominent once Drake started capitalizing off of them, which was past the point of 21 Savage’s height in terms of substance and production. The quality of his albums can greatly surpass most of his recent features, and his weakened feature additions will start to work against artists.
Keeping 21 Savage put away to work on another album, though, would be to his best benefit so the quality of his raps is not dampened by these weaker features. Out of his top five tracks on Spotify, only one of the songs are solo tracks (“Glock In My Lap” from Savage Mode II). His solo work demonstrates his own aesthetic, rather than fitting into another artist’s, like Drake’s. The difference between Drake and 21 Savage’s rap style is very different, and this stark contrast used to be mesmerizing. However, the frequency of their collaborations are starting to dull 21 Savage’s deeper and darker style. An artist like Travis Scott has a similar energy of rap to 21 Savage, but the depth of Scott’s music is too baseline and monotone for 21 Savage to capitalize off of.
Now that his name has blossomed in the music industry, his albums will have more success and praise. Continuing to limit himself as a feature artist will soon brush him under the rug once more.
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