How 21 Savage Is Balancing Art and Activism After ICE Scare

As the sun and clouds play hide-and-seek on a brisk March morning, three black SUVs pull up to Camp Jewell House Academy, a private school located in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur, Ga. A handful of school officials rush out to meet today’s guest of honor: rapper 21 Savage, who’s about to give students the surprise of their lives — or at least the most riveting lecture they’ll ever get about saving money.

21 Savage, dressed in all black, enters the school with his hood pulled up and his head bent down, trailed by a bodyguard and members of his legal and management teams. It’s the first of two stops they’re making today on behalf of the 21 Savage Bank Account Campaign, the 26-year-old rapper’s financial-literacy program that he launched in 2018 and named after his hit 2017 single, “Bank Account.” He started the program by giving 21 teens $1,000 each to start savings accounts; now he’s teaming up with nonprofits Juma and Get Schooled for the next phase, which aims to pair 150 at-risk Atlanta youth with jobs by June.

21 Savage, who is based in Atlanta, looks happy to be here. His eyes light up as he meets a spirited 8-year-old girl who tells him she’s already running her own business selling soap and other bath products. (“So can you give me some free stuff?” he asks her. Without missing a beat, she replies, “I’ll have to see what I can do.”) Later, a smile breaks across his face as he pulls two crying middle-schoolers into his embrace to take a picture. But he doesn’t appear entirely comfortable with all the students’ eyes on him. He fidgets quietly, seemingly unsure of where to look or what to say; at one point, Rep. Henry “Hank” Johnson, D-Ga., whose office helped set up the visits, tells him in a half-whisper to say something about staying in school and avoiding guns. A few seconds later, 21 Savage does just that: “Y’all stay in school, and stay away from bad people and guns and stuff, aight?”

The U.K.-born, U.S.-bred rapper prefers not to be the center of attention — outside of performing onstage, at least. But that’s exactly where he found himself on Feb. 3. Just hours before Super Bowl LIII kicked off, DEA agents in Atlanta pulled over a car he was riding in, then handed him over to U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officials, who detained him and began deportation proceedings for overstaying a visa that expired in 2006.

The news shocked many of his fans, who didn’t know that 21 Savage — whose real name is She’yaa Bin Abraham-Joseph — was born in the United Kingdom and legally arrived stateside at age 7, speaking with a British accent that has since faded. His gangsta-rap mystique seemed so at odds with English stereotypes that in the first few hours after the news broke, many fans responded with blithe (though often hilarious) memes that suggested the rapper had been living a double life and secretly palling around with Queen Elizabeth II.