Let me ask you a question. If someone approached you and asked to make a movie about your life, who would you want to narrate your life’s journey? I’ll give you a minute….. Let me guess, you said Morgan Freeman (and if you didn’t, what the hell is wrong with you!). Freeman is instantly recognizable across the globe, whether you see a picture of him, or just hear his silky-smooth and soothing voice (ahh, I’m relaxed just thinking about it). 

But this time Freeman is taking his skills somewhere he hasn’t gone before—the rap scene. “Sir” 21 Savage just dropped his highly anticipated album Savage Mode II, which features other artists like Drake and Young Thug. But the feature that everyone can’t stop talking about is Morgan Freeman. He sets the tone of the album right off the bat as the sole (and soul) voice on the intro track—appropriately titled, “Intro”. Using his soft-spoken nature but cutting tone, “Freeman talks about how, when great men join forces and come together as one entity, they magnify each other’s attributes and become incredibly powerful. This is, of course, alluding to the union of 21 Savage and Metro Boomin,” according to Genius. That is a commonly overlooked factor in what makes this album so successful. 21 Savage hasn’t typically been a chart-topping artist, but by working with the legendary Metro Boomin, and bringing in Morgan Freeman, Savage Mode II is projected to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart. 

If you haven’t streamed the album already, what are you waiting for? It’s not just Freeman’s voice that makes this album so great. I mean, yes—he is fantastic, and for the first time I find myself saving skits and monologues to my library and playlists—but even more is how 21 Savage has fine-tuned and perfected his sound over his career. As great as his single “a lot” featuring J. Cole was in his 2018 album “i am > i was”, the song was absolutely CARRIED by Cole and stood out because of how inconsistent the rest of the album was. “Savage Mode II” has this deeper rhythm and ebbs and flows in a way that sucks the listener in. His cadence, flow and album structure have matured in a way that transports you. When listening, it doesn’t feel like you’re just into the music, but rather, it feels like you are watching a movie—a life experience. That’s one of the reasons why Freeman’s interlude on “Snitches & Rats” went viral—because IT IS a life experience. When he says, “the difference is, at least a snitch is human, but a rat is a fuckin’ rat, period,” everyone thinks to someone in their life that at some point let them down in a big way, whether they were a rat or a snitch—creating an album that reflects a life experience. 

So I urge you, put on a pair of headphones, close your eyes, and just let 21 Savage, Metro Boomin and Morgan Freeman take you on a musical journey (and for more musical content and playlist recs, be sure to follow me on Spotify @ndturtledove).