On December 7, 21 Savage was supposed to release his new album, I Am > I Was, but that didn’t happen for a very simple reason: He just forgot to. So the release date was pushed back to today, and he apparently didn’t forget about it this time, as I Am > I Was is now streaming. The tracklist doesn’t credit any featured artists, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. In fact, there are quite a few high-profile ones: Folks who contributed to the album include Childish Gambino, Post Malone, J. Cole, Offset, Project Pat, ScHoolboy Q, City Girls’ Yung Miami, Young Nudy, Gunna, and Lil Baby.
Cole’s verse on album opener “A Lot” is particularly interesting. In it, he makes a reference to Tekashi 69, who was just hit with an arrest warrant in Houston, even though he’s already in custody facing federal charges. On the song, Cole raps, “Pray for Tekashi, they want him to rot / I picture him inside a cell on a cot / ‘flectin’ on how he made it to the top / wondering if it was worth it or not.”
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Elsewhere in the verse, Cole talks about the busy 2018 he’s had, in which he released his KOD album and made guests appearances on a variety of songs: “I guess I was hoping the music would speak for itself, but the people want everything else / OK, no problem, I’ll show up on everyone album / You know what the outcome will be / I’m batting a thousand.”
Listen to “A Lot” above.
