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| photo by All Urban Central |
Just in case you were somewhere off the grid, you have an excuse for missing one of Atlanta’s hottest artist drops arguably one of the better sounding projects of the year. 21 Savage recently released his sophomore album I am > I was. To celebrate the release of project 21 hosted an album release party “Y’all never seen an album release party in the hood,” 21 told Rolling Out. “I’m the first rapper to have a listening party at a crack motel. This is a crack head motel where there was a lot of prostitution and murder.”
The three-day event was located at the Motel 21 off Glennwood Road in Decatur, Georgia. “This is where 21 was raised,” 21’s manager Justin “Meezy” Williams tells Billboard also mentioning that 21’s brother was killed right across the street from the motel. “We can walk to the apartments where he grew up”. The night was all put together by Executive Producer and Chief Creative Strategist of the Spice Group Antwanette McLaughlin, Creative and Set director of Set By Skye Skye Williams.
video source: DIRTY GLOVE BASTARTD
Upon entering guest received a map that guided them through interactive rooms, each designed to fit tracks from the album as well as signature cocktails provided by Ciroc. 21’s Lead By Example Foundation partnered with Amazon, Get Schooled and Juma to provide 21 lucky fans with a $1000k gift card.”People need to come where the music comes from” Savage told Rob Markman in their Genius interview. Black walls that had painted butterflies with bullets for bodies and the words “I, Was”, ”Monster”, ”Padlock”, ”Goodday”, ”I am” “Friends”, “Smoke” and “Ball” fill-in the spaces between the butterflies. Each room in the motel was redesigned to bring to life the song off the album. For example in one room fans encountered a man sitting at a table, emptying handguns and assault rifles. “Savage why you always rapping about Gunsmoke/Cause bitch, I fell in love with the Gunsmoke” a snippet from the track GunSmoke plays in the background. Another room featured a makeshift strip club with an ATM that shot out money the actress playing the strippers inside made it clear if you were not throwing money and showing your support for 21’s love for Ass and Titties.
Fans where truly emerged in the life and mind of 21, as Motel 21 marks the third interactive showcase in Atlanta, the first two being 2Chainz’s Pink Trap House and T.I.’s Trap Museum. Hopefully, this trend continues, maybe we’ll see other other Atlanta artist, pick up the trend and take it forward.
