Article By: Ashia Skye

Since his release from an ICE detention center, 21 Savage has been opening up about life as an immigrant.  He recently sat down with the New York Times, and he discussed having a British accent as a child and getting teased for it when he came to the U.S.

“I had a accent, ’cause my first day of school they was making fun of me so I beat somebody up, and they was calling me ‘taekwondo kid.’ My mama whupped me, she made me stay in the house. So I know I had a accent, but I been here 20 years — I don’t know what happened to it.”

He also spoke on the memes people created after finding out he was British.

“Some of them was funny — I ain’t gonna lie. I was appreciative of that. I coulda been another person who just, ‘He locked up? Damn,’ and nobody said nothing. Some people, I see why they was mad. It ain’t about the meme, it’s about the bigger picture. But I done been through way worse things in my life than somebody putting me on a meme. I been shot — what is a meme? A meme is nothing. That’s something on the internet that I can do like this [turns over phone] and never see again. I look at bullet scars every day, so it’s like, a meme, bro?”