With the 2018 release of 21 Savage’s second solo studio effort “I Am > I Was” the experience could not have been more of a hyped-up creation.

Despite being one of the most listened to albums in the United States, let alone at Elkhart Memorial after it’s release, something extremely rare happened: 21 Savage missed his own release date! Typically, you would expect a highly popular and mainstream rapper to release his albums on time, so this occurrence drew not only a great amount of anger toward him, but there was also a lot of laughs from his fans.

The morning after his specified release date, Dec. 7, 2018, he posted the following tweet:

“[Expletive] I forgot to drop my album my bad y’all” (@21Savage)

and then claimed that he had overslept and forgot to drop his upcoming album.

However, it is thought that he may have done this on purpose for attention. Being known for his hyper- sarcastic and humorous personality, fans speculated that he just wanted a meme to be made about himself.

Either way, the hype for his album never ceased even with the missed date, his fans still received something.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment released a trailer for the next release in the “Mortal Kombat” series, “Mortal Kombat 11,” which features one of the songs off his new album. This at least sated feelings of suspense for the time being.

Then, again, later in the day, after his Twitter post, on his Instagram (@21Savage), he posted a clip hinting that his new release date would be Dec. 21, 2018.

Finally, at the end of the day on Dec. 8, Savage’s manager tweeted out yet another message stating,

“We ain’t drop on the 7th because this day belongs to Super Smash bros. Let’s respect this legendary moment and all connect our switches in peace” (@MEGAMEEZY).

This claim was to try to shift the blame in a humorous tone to something else, so they used the recent release of “Super Smash Bros” as their scapegoat, which for most of Savage’s fans, this was a pretty acceptable excuse.

However, even with all the commotion behind this album release, “I Am > I Was” helped 21 Savage score his first No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart which ranks the most popular albums in the U.S. through not only the amount of sales the album gets but also the amount of streams.

To put it into perspective, this topped not only rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie’s new album “Hoodie Szn,” but it also dethroned the well-known “Astroworld” by rapper Travis Scott.

In the eyes of his fans though, these results are nothing but expected with guest appearances on the track such as Travis Scott, Post Malone, Childish Gambino, Offset and more.

In the just of things, the release of “I Am > I Was” was not only a suspenseful and memory making occurrence, but it was also the release of what I would call a rhythmical and lyrical masterpiece.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the GENESIS staff. Reach Caleb Webb at [email protected].