Usually on New Music Friday, NPR Music’s team listens to brand new albums – out that very day – but on this week’s show, we’re spending some time talking about an album that’s exactly one week old. Last Friday, Jan. 12, the Atlanta rapper 21 Savage released American Dream, his first proper solo album since 2018 and the first blockbuster hip-hop release of this year.
American Dream arrived with very little notice but plenty of fanfare, and a lot of context to unpack. NPR Music’s Sheldon Pearce, Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden dig into the backstory: the way the title felt immediately like a reference to his 2019 arrest by immigration officials and the revelation that he was a British national with an expired non-immigrant visa. The video accompanying the album looked like a trailer for a biopic about 21 Savage’s life, with Donald Glover and Stranger Things star Caleb McLaughlin playing different versions of the rapper, which may or may not have anything to do with an eventual full-length feature film.
Is 21 Savage’s American dream a celebration? An immigrant tale? A story of freedom, sacrifice or something more complicated? What does it mean to chase that dream? And what might it mean to capture it?
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Noteworthy albums out January 19
- Sleater-Kinney, Little Rope
- Green Day, Saviors
- Eladio Carrión, Sol María
- Ana Tijoux, Vida
- Brittney Spencer, My Stupid Life
- Mary Halvorson, Cloudward
- Ethan Iverson, Technically Acceptable
- glass beach, plastic death
- ericdoa, DOA
- Neck Deep, Neck Deep
- Fredo Bang, Yes, I’m Sad
- Keyon Harrold, Foreverland
- Jozef Van Wissem, The Night Dwells In The Day
- Oren Ambarchi, Jim O’Rourke & Keiji Haino, With pats on the head, just one too few evil one too many is good that’s all it is
- Mali Obomsawin and Magdalena Abrego, Greatest Hits
