Ruthless trap about the world of thoughts of an existence marked by capitalism.
The album’s content is framed by 21 Savage’s mother when, on the intro to AMERICAN DREAM, she talks about her immigration from the United Kingdom to the USA and her hope for a good future for her children. On the first song “All Of Me” her son describes the inner demons that have bred in him for almost twenty years in the land of unlimited possibilities: “Memories in my head, the devil talkin to me / I know Satan down the path, but God walkin’ with me.”
For the most part, AMERICAN DREAM is an album about what remains when the American dream has proven to be an illusion: poverty, despair, crime. When 21 Savage, like on “Letter To My Brudda,” raps about his sinful life in the streets of Atlanta and asks God for forgiveness, the listener feels completely in, also thanks to the trap beats that shine in their minimalism into the world of thoughts of a man who wants one thing above all: to leave his past behind him. The fact that mother and son themselves, as can be heard in the outro, continue to believe in free-market dreams is completely irrelevant. We don’t have to.