21 Savage on Weed, Wealth & Why He Doesn’t Do Rap Beef

Full-time rap, I ain't doing no drilling. So before we get started, I did something special for you. I brought my buddy here today. He's from Louis Vuitton. So he is the exclusive painter and artist for Louis Vuitton. So when you go to the Louis Vuitton store, if you're gonna paint something, it's got to go through him. So Got you a little something. I hope you like it. A gift. I'm gonna let you do it. I know what it is. It is? It's like a watch case.

is it a crest uh what's that chest i can feel it i can just tell bro i like this How you open? I told you. You knew. I knew it. I could feel it. I needed one of these. I know you love your watches. Yeah. You know how I know you love your watches? Because me and you buy our watches off the same person for years. Oh, God.

So he been telling me forever, he's like, you know, 21, he only get watches that like, he invests in watches that bring value. Mm-hmm. That go up. Yep. You painted all this on here? Yeah. It's fine. And Aaron gave me the ideas too. Let's put the Slaughter Gang logo on the side and the dagger on the other side. Yeah, I got the Virgil, yeah. Yeah, my boy Virgil, man. Yeah, I love this. This is like a cityscape of Atlanta, kind of inspired by it.

Yeah, this shit's fine. And you hand-painted it? Yeah, all hand-painted. Damn. He did it for LeBron. He did it for a bunch of people. This shit's fine. And it holds hella watches, too. Eight watches. I know you'll be able to fill that up. Appreciate it. My brother. I appreciate you. You know that. Hell yeah. Well, hell yeah. Should we start this? Yeah. Now we're speeding. You're good to go. All right. Well.

Sitting here today, I'm with international superstar, top-selling artist, Grammy award-winning artist, humanitarian, and just named by Time Magazine, the top 100 most influential people in the world.

It's more than an honor. I want to welcome 21 Savage. Thank you so much, bro. Thank you for having me. I know you could be anywhere in the world right now. Right. I know Amazon, Instagram, biggest places in the world. You could be anywhere you want right now. Yeah. And you're here with me, and that means the world. to me thank you so I want to start off with you know we just went to the girl we just walked around what did you think that shit crazy like the whole process is just how it's made

You wouldn't think like that much work going to it like it's a lot of different rooms, bro. That's a lot of weed What do you think smell good? Hell yeah, finally got you some flowers. I got to cut you your flowers. Yeah So, let's start off with, when was the first time you smoked weed? Tell me your experience. The first time I smoked weed? I think I was in middle school, maybe, elementary.

No, middle, like sixth grade. And this dude in my neighborhood used to sell weed or whatever. But he was like my big brother. So I stole some of his shit. So we getting out to school, but it's like after school. And we got like, you know, the little lunch sack, the brown lunch sack bag. Oh, yeah. We ripped that off.

Rolled it up in a little lunch sack because we tried to get a blunt from the store But they wouldn't sell us one and it wasn't no crackheads out that we could pay to get us one at the time So we rolled it up in a little brown paper bag Smoked it We had Visine. Put Visine in our eyes before we went home. I just kept laughing. Like, I just couldn't start laughing. Got home. I was hungry as a motherfucker. Oh, God. Was it good weed?

It was mid. It was mid? Yeah, that's back when we had seeds and sticks and all that type of shit. It used to come in sacks, little dime sacks, 125s. Oh, yeah. yeah it was that type weed bush well not it was good weed for the time how old were you at the time i was probably 11. 10, 11, 12, somewhere up in there. And you smoked it out the paper bag? Yeah, brown paper bag. That's crazy. Yeah. And it got you high? High as fuck. So you stole the weed from the homie?

Not really stole it. But like just took a little bit to smoke. He ain't give a fuck. Yeah. Yeah. So me and you got a similar story. We both dropped out of school. I know that you dropped out of school to sell weed. I dropped out of school. I got kicked out of school. And then I realized, I'm like, I just love weed so much. I just wanted to sell weed so I could get free weed to smoke it first.

I was like, you know, this shit's so expensive. I was telling you 500 an ounce for everything. Tell me about you. getting kicked out of school and you starting to sell weed and your experience with that see i ain't get kicked out i i got kicked out twice i got kicked out seventh grade then i got kicked out eighth grade

And then ninth grade, they was trying to kick me out, but my mama just withdrew me from school type shit. And she told them she was going to homeschool me, but she ain't really homeschooling me. And I just started running around doing all type of shit. So to prevent the third kickout, I just got withdrew from school type shit. And then started selling weed? Yeah. So, was it brick weed? Was it... It was mid. Mid. Mid, yeah, mid.

so you guys back then you called like the mid the weed was called mid if it was yeah but you had like different like qualities of mid so you had like You had like Reggie, which is like the lowest of the lowest that you can have. Then you had like Thrax. You had Popcorn Mid. You had Arizona Mid. It was just our type of different, like the higher up, the less seeds they had, but it was still mid though. Still had seeds.

Yeah, it still had seeds, but it was just less seeds. And it might have a few orange hairs here and there. Be like a little brighter in color. Then they upgraded the dro. Everybody was smoking dro. Then it went, Perp came in. That's when the Perp and Cush and Sour Diesel came in. Oh yeah. Like, so you know how it went. It went like step by step. And the Sunset Sherbert, you remember that one? Yeah, like, I don't remember that. The Sunset Sherbert? Uh-uh.

I just remember it went from goddamn perp and OG to just all kind of shit. Yeah. See, this California, so y'all had, like, shit before we did type shit. Yeah. In Atlanta, it just went from mid to perp to Cushion Sour Diesel to just all type of flavors and shit. Do you remember how much pounds were going for? Oh, you know what I remember? The first, the first flavor, name, shit that I remember was like other than Kush.

it was like blue something blue dream blue dream yeah blue dream that was like the first little fake like exotic shit but it wasn't no good weed to me though but it's still not no good weed yeah yeah I love that. You know your weed. Yeah. So selling weed, can you tell me like... Like an experience, like a hard thing going through it when you were selling weed? Like a story of something that happened when you were selling weed? Anything you can think of, bro.

shot i got shot selling weed kind of yeah kind of it was slick over weed yeah um oh i'll tell you something that that molded me from a young age Alright. My best friend, his name was Johnny. He used to sell weed or whatever. I used to get my weed from him. So, back then pounds of milk was probably like... 850 in atlanta or something he was probably paying like 650 700 for the good meal though so he used to sell me the zips for like i can't even remember the price maybe 150

250 a zip let me think no it couldn't have been no 250. probably like a hundred dollars a zip because sevens used to be 25 okay so he used to charge me $75 instead of $100. He used to charge there at like his regular plays $100 charge me $75. But I wasn't buying a zip. I was buying like a half. Shit like that.

So I buy a half an ounce of weed from him and I got the scale on me too. I used to ride around with the scale, move around with the scale. Mind you, I'm in middle school at the time though. I'm in eighth grade.

So I get the weed from, so I get back to my apartment. Matter of fact, we're staying in the house then, so we get back to the neighborhood. So. a little partner he ain't really he was like my partner but he used to buy weed from me too so back then everybody used to be like man i'll buy one from you if you match me

So they'll buy a sack of weed and then I'll smoke one of my sacks with them. Yeah. So we smoking in the car. That's when I learned never smoke in the car if you got weed on you. We smoking in the car. Hot boxing. I got the scale on me too though. Oh no. Police pull up. I try to slide the scale up under the seat. Put the weed up under the seat. They got down. Open the door. Smoke just coming out the car.

They search everybody. They like, all right, we gonna search the car. So, got down. They find the weed. It was three of us, though. It was me, the nigga who used to buy weed from me, and somebody else. So goddamn, police like, um, whose shit is this? I'm the youngest, though. I'm a juvenile. So I'm like, shit, it's mine. That's my weed. That's my scale. So he like.

he started talking to the because the the other two dudes was like older they was like 19 and probably like 18 or some your homies is your homie yeah these like i said we too but we cool too though but they way older than me so the police walk over to the older like man he a juvenile y'all really gonna like let him take the file like y'all gonna let this kid go to jail

versus y'all taking it or whatever. So I'm like, nah, that's my shit or whatever it is. I ain't say my shit, but I was like, nah, officer, that's my stuff. Like, that's mine. I'm going to own up to it. That's my stuff. So the officer kept it clear.

He said, I ain't gonna lock you up. I ain't gonna charge you with it. He like, if you gonna sell weed and have a scale, why would you do it and smoke weed in the car in front of another neighbor house that you don't know type shit. The cops said that? Yes. Took me to my house called my mama outside He said He said your son just got caught with this weed this amount of weed he said

Forget about the weed. He got caught with the weed with a scale. So that's automatically possession with intent to distribute She said I'm not gonna lock him up. I see he already on probation She said just keep an eye on him and whoop his ass when he come in the house type shit and got down. He ain't even write me a ticket or nothing. He just let me go. Then from that day forward, because my mom, I think my mama was like, why would you smoke?

with your bomb on you like why would you have all your weed that you selling on you and be smoking in the car type shit and the scale and the scale so ever since then i just knew like all right if you moving around doing what you're doing like don't smoke while you around and shit type shit. Oh God. I never smoked weed in a car since that day. For real? Even as an adult. Since that day right now, I've never smoked a blunt in the car. Ever. That's crazy.

Sweat it up. In California? Nope. Damn. I still just be paranoid even in L.A. Like, I know that shit legal, but boy, I'm from Atlanta. That shit ain't here. Hell no. that's why they need to make weed federally legal soon yeah how they do how we do that though so how we do that is like there's people locked up for that but you selling weed you got a stove right now

that people can come legally in and buy weed and don't get in no trouble. But it's people who are really doing 10, 15 years for doing the exact same thing. When I opened a dispensary in 2005, a good friend of mine had a store right down the street and... He got locked up for doing the same exact thing that I was doing. He got 20 years in prison. His name is Noah Kleinman. He got out in 2020. When Trump left office, he pardoned him.

because he still had another, like, six years left on his sentence. And he was literally doing the same thing I'm doing. So essentially, like, when I first started selling weed, George Bush was president. So literally. Everybody was doing federal time. Like people got caught with a couple pounds. They're doing federal time. So for me, I think that, you know, I think that weed is better for you than alcohol. What do you think?

I think so. Like health-wise? Health-wise. Yeah, for sure. And I think just in general, how is alcohol legal and how is weed not legal, right? So that brings me to like, for instance, right now. our industry is suffering so much because you know there's it's an over regulation it's an over taxation

But as you know, in California, you know, they're they're they're so, you know, it's not black and white. You know, everyone thinks that it's black and white. You know, what's black and white is 35 percent tax is. You know, the overregulation, I would say, is from government. They think that like, oh, it's weed. There's unlimited money. Well, if you've got thousands of people running around the street trapping weed, selling weed.

they there's no repercussion for them they're breaking into houses they're stealing shit they're robbing people they're getting in california and getting out in in 60 days so you know they'd rather attack people like me you know because you got to think for for cannabis legalization there's higher ups up there you know it's like all these businesses right like there's people at the top that have hundreds of millions of dollars billions of dollars invested in policy and change and

these people want to control the weed industry they don't want to see someone like me you know make it legal they want to make it legal in a way that it's impossible for anyone to do business that doesn't come in with a couple hundred million right so that's why the weed industry right now is so bad is because There's no clear path forward for legalization. So you got to think like right now, you know, alcohol, for instance, you can sell alcohol from.

California to London you can sell alcohol from California to Germany to Spain you can sell alcohol anywhere you know from internationally interstate commerce you can do any kind of commerce for weed you're only allowed to operate per state because weed is still federally illegal weed is in the same category as lsd and heroin so schedule one drugs heroin Heroin. So it's weed, heroin, LSD, Schedule 1 drug. So I know it sounds crazy. So what's cocaine? Cocaine is a Schedule 2. It's less. It's less.

Hell no. I swear. Is that right, Alex? Am I right about that? That must be in California. Legally, I mean federally. Federally, cocaine is lower on the scale than weed. Hell nah, man. Are you hearing this? Man, ain't no way. That's 100% fact. 100% facts. He an attorney. How many years you're an attorney? A dozen. How many years is your dad an attorney? 50.

How many years is your brother an attorney? 15. There you go. God damn, they look at weed worse than cocaine. Yeah. Weed worse than cocaine. That's what they're saying. I never knew that. Yeah. Well, now you know, so. I think something that's huge is something that I've been trying to work on is federal legalization, right? I think that, you know, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, he has the ability.

to make cannabis legal right he can make all these these you know he can without congress he could just say so i believe he can correct can he pass it without congress you You can make it not as bad as cocaine. So... For me now, I'm on a mission in my life where I want to sit with Donald Trump and I want to talk to him about legalizing cannabis. I want him to see this reaction of like, hey, you know, you got a microphone.

that'll reach not only the united states it'll reach around the world and not only that there's no eyes on our industry of you know people of your caliber that are like what's going on like like you didn't even know that cocaine is less on the schedule you know it's a schedule two and marijuana schedule one trump can legalize it and allow us to do not only

Interstate commerce. He could allow us to do international commerce. So we would create essentially in America Hundreds of thousands if not millions of jobs, right? from cultivation, manufacturing, distribution. Why are we allowing Spain, Germany, all these other states, Israel?

they're doing international commerce with each other so they're already doing business with weed so they're shipping to each other so israel's shipping to germany germany shipping to spain spain shipping to israel so All these countries are already trying to beat us because we have such fucked up policy in America when it comes to cannabis that nobody has like a clear answer of what's going on. you know because there hasn't been um

There hasn't been a conversation with the president yet or there hasn't been a pathway forward to where it's like, all right, let's really do this. Right. You know, many people promise they never did it. Right.

But back to the weed, but we're going to get back to that because I got a cool story. I want to know, so when you smoke weed, do you smoke blunts? Do you like smoke joints? What's your way to smoke? What do you like to smoke? Blunts. Blunts? What kind of blunts do you smoke? Swishes. Okay. All right, old school. So when you get stoned, what's your favorite food to eat? Whatever the fuck is next to me. Shit. Honestly. You got some kind of munchie food? Whatever's right there.

Oatmeal cream pie, pasta, honey bun, Jamaican food. All right, we got some Jamaican food for you today. Yeah. So what's your favorite? weed strain and like what have you been smoking on lately and and well it's this shit called um i think i got some it's this shit called mind blown

But don't nobody really got it like that. But they said, they actually said that they got some of that shit from you. Those are my boys. Yeah. Yeah, they buy pounds from us. This shit's smoking, though. That shit's smoking? Yeah, this shit good as a motherfucker. Can I check it out? Let's see if that's one.

Cause y'all make, y'all grow shit for everybody, right? For a lot of people, yeah. They said they got some shit from y'all. Yeah, this is the LCG Skittles we do. This is our shit. So you got this? Yeah. Yeah, listen, I already see these guys coming up. Yeah, don't nobody got this. Like that. Keep this in the tub. Plus traditional you be smoking on too. Yeah, I smoke traditional for sure. Of course. Gotta smoke traditional.

So what did they call the triple A weed back in the day? What was the, what was the name for like, yo, I got the best. Was it back in wet day though? Like, let's say, well, I like that. Say around like 2014, 2016. Cookies. It was cookies then. It was cookies then? Yeah. That's what people like? Girl Scout cookies. Girl Scout cookies. Yeah, that's what.

from what i remember i remember being young it was irene kush that was like the best of the best like they used to charge like 1200 an ounce for that um Then it went to like the Girl Scout cookie wave. Then it went into the fucking rents wave. Trying to think. Yeah, then you had the gumbo wave. It just was all tight. It's just waves and shit. Waves. Yeah. Okay. So, I know you've smoked weed probably with everybody. Oh, no. But Scotty.

Biscotti. Biscotti had a big-ass wave. A big-ass wave? Yeah, Biscotti. You still like Biscotti? Yeah, it's good. I like y'all Biscotti. Thank you. I know we brought you when you did the Amazon show. We brought you some biscotti to the Amazon show. You really liked it. So, I know you smoke weed with everybody. I'm sure you smoke weed. So, like, tell me some cool people that you smoke weed with in your experience that you would say. I don't smoke. You know, I smoke by myself when I'm alone.

I can't be around people when I smoke because it makes me paranoid. So I smoke like at home when I'm playing the game. I ain't got shit to do. Or when I'm in the studio by myself just recording just me and the engineer, I might hit the blunt. But I can't smoke around people because I get too paranoid and just get to thinking too much.

So I ain't really got no cool like smoke stories with nobody for real. Not that I can think of. No, I can't really think of shit. Does weed help you with your creative process?

Sometimes. Sometimes it make me stupid, though. I get in that motherfucking can't rap for shit. Just be just in there. But sometimes, yeah, it'll just put you, like, in another little mind frame. you know it's funny it's funny you said that because like sometimes like one time i was with dirk in the studio

And he was like, all right, bring me the strongest weed. I bring the best weed. I'm like, are you sure you don't bring the strongest weed? Like me and Dirk, like, like I would always bring them weed and stuff. And he'd be like, bro, come to see you bring me the strongest weed. And I want my boy whoop. That's the first time I met his boy.

He's my boy, too. He's like, yo, come, I want to smoke it. So he was sitting there. They were working on the J. Cole songs. And he was playing me some stuff he had done with Future and all the album. He's like, oh, you guys roll that shit up. So, me, Durkin, we rolled a fat ass blunt and...

He's like, all right, light that shit. So I'm like, all right, we smoked it. I'm like, you know this shit gonna light. This is the one right here. This is the paranoid weed. He's like, no, no, we good. He's like, bro, we smoked the fat ass fucking blunt between three of us. He looked at me 20 minutes later. He said, nah. He said, I'm out this motherfucker. He just caught up. He said, nah, I'm out. He said, fuck. He looked and then he thought about it.

he's like yo we'll go walk let's let's let's do this you know he just got up he was done yeah and then he had texted me at home when he got home he's like yo bro whatever that was like that one that one going that's the one like that shit yeah that motherfucker done yeah you know you that paranoid oh my god bro that foot shit made you why do it make you paranoid though so I think that there's levels of weed that are super strong. Let's say, for instance, if you haven't smoked weed all day.

And then you're going to go take like a fat ass hit of some weed. You're going to get high. Like even if it's not the strongest weed, you're still going to get high. But if you haven't smoked weed for like.

all day long and then you smoke a fat ass joint you smoke the whole thing it's like it's like if you give me a bottle of tequila if i take a shot or i feel a little good a little but if i drink the whole bottle yeah what's gonna happen you're gonna be up up up yeah you know um so we talked about this i think it's really important you support federal legalization yeah

Would you sit down with Trump and have a conversation with him? I ain't really into the politics and shit, but if it's going to help free people who locked up for weed, for sure. Yeah. Hell yeah. I think we can make that happen. I think me, you and Donald Trump could sit down and have a conversation. And if we get a big enough microphone with enough people, I think that we can make weed legal.

And I truly, genuinely believe that. So just for instance, like I had Antonio Brown on the show and he's friends with Trump. He went, spoke, have you seen it? He went to go speak at the, he spoke at one of the rallies. Then he went to Mar-a-Lago and then he just.

ab and trump locked in yeah so when i i asked ab i'm like do you think trump will legalize weed he's like you need enough people like me to sit down to continue to say like for ab for instance he a football player so like They be trying to give him Vicodin.

Oxycontins like he fucked up his foot like even my boy forever He like he did some Kyle freeze on his foot in like they try to give him pills. He's like fucking pills I don't want to take I want natural medicine, right? So like I that the big thing for legalization is like there's so much medical benefit from weed like i because i've been serving people since forever i've had dispensaries so i had so many cancer patients come in like

it's simple like i'll never forget someone who had stage four cancer they were dying i was like does the weed help you they're like honestly i can't eat food so it's not about science it's about when i smoke weed I get the munchies and I eat the food. Right. So then I feel better. So was it some scientific thing that happened that like, oh, I smoked it and now I'm cured of cancer? No. But did I want to take 100 pills in bottles? Right.

Or did I want to just smoke a couple hits off a joint and then I get the munchies and I start eating. Right. So I think that there's such a big medical aspect behind cannabis. I think that your microphone is so big. And I think that Trump. is already signaled that he's open for legalization but he needs someone like

like he needs, he needs someone like Alex to explain the laws and the, you know, the logistics of it and how interstate commerce and how that would all work. But me personally, I think we're leaving if not billions, I think trillions of dollars. for our american economy on the table imagine we could sell weed in london right now if they say hey now weed is fairly legal everywhere we can sell weed all around the world

We can sell weed to London. We can sell weed to Spain. We can sell weed anywhere. Ain't weed legal in London? It's not legal in London. It's decriminalized or some shit, though, I think. So, funny you said that. I'm going to show you something right now. I had the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. You know Sadiq Khan? Yeah. I had him in this facility right here. Savage, I've never been on camera my whole entire life. I never wanted to be on camera. I didn't like camera.

I was always nervous. I never in my whole life, I never thought we was so illegal. My homies are doing 20 years for weed. i didn't want to get on camera but then alex told me he's like look he was a former city attorney he wrote all the cannabis laws in la he said look the mayor of london wants to come to california

And he wants to interview you and your operation and everything you've done. He's going to come with BBC News. He's going to come with the Los Angeles City Mayor's Office. He's going to bring all the city officials. this was my first time on camera me and sadiq khan on bbc news he came here

Sadiq has launched the London Drug Commission, which is going to be headed by Lord Faulkner, the former law chancellor, to Tony Blair. The aim of the commission is to consider whether London should follow cities such as Los Angeles and legalise the... Someone like me from the trap sitting with the mayor of London That's why I wear all that pink suit. I said, I got to make some noise.

So we put them inside here so that they can absorb the water and stay alive. One of the things I've been fascinated by is how by decriminalising cannabis they've raised the quality and the safety. of the product also raised literally millions and millions and millions of dollars in relation to taxes being paid. an industry, an area that was illegal. Criminals were benefiting. A black market in relation to the production and use of cannabis drugs has been transformed.

into an awful legal industry where tax revenues are paid. There are very high standards of regulation, regular inspections. So I basically had He's still the mayor? Is he still the mayor? Yes, he is. Yeah, he's still the mayor. This was three years ago. So he had hit me up and I was like, bro, I don't like cameras. I don't want to be on no camera. He's like, this is your opportunity.

to do something huge for the cannabis industry. Like this is your business. You got to get in front of it. So for like logistics for the business, like I just like to grow bomb ass weed. I like to, I know what's bomb. I know what's cool. I know how to run the business, but traditional got so much bigger than me that I was just like, I need somebody. That's why I brought in Alex. I was like, you got to quit your job at the city. You should run this. So he had.

every big cannabis company that he could have went to go work for they offered him crazy money you know that oh come work here but he knew that i really had the assets i had the licensing And there was no bullshit behind me because I really own it. And I own a lot of the real estate. I took all the money that I have and I just reinvested it into the industry.

Now I made him the CEO of the company and you know for me I'm still running it and whenever I need to you know whatever i need to do i'm here to do it but yeah that was my first time on tv sadiq khan that's fine you know that's hard and i and i think that's why i keep saying like just imagine bringing

any brand that you're not, you know, subject to only selling in California. It's like, imagine right now they're like, all right, you can only stream your records like only in Atlanta, but like anybody outside Atlanta can't listen to your records. Yeah. That'd be crazy. That's what's happening right now. You know, it's like eventually when we branch out and this shit becomes federally legal, like it's a trillion dollar business. So.

California can't sell weed to, like, what's another state that weed is legal? Vegas is legal. Yep. they can't sell weed to vegas nope because it's still a schedule one drug and because it's in the same category as heroin and lsd you're not allowed to cross state lines So all the weed in Vegas is grown in Vegas. Yes. So every state that's legal, all that weed is grown there. Yes. That's dumb as hell. Right? Ain't that stupid?

Stupid is not the word, but like you got logic one plus one. I got logic one plus one. There's so many people behind government, these big like corporate companies, these crazy people. They have no idea.

what the fuck is going on in the weed industry because all they care about is like you know clicking numbers and like i said there's so many big hundreds of millions of dollars of you know suits and ties that they want to control it like alcohol alcohol a trillion dollar industry they want to control the weed industry But I'm not going nowhere. Like, they already, you know how they fucking with me? They just sent the national, listen to this, you're not gonna believe this. So.

There's people that are up there that are competing with me. Right. But they have hundreds of millions of dollars and they operate in the red. So they're not even profitable. They're losing money. every month but they could do that because they're raising more money raising more money a lot of them are mso companies they're stocks so they just fool people into like oh invest into this mso you're gonna be the stocks are gonna go up times 10. and for my So many people out there that

don't want me to win you know and that's just with any business right haters people like they don't want me to win they don't want to see someone like me winning but yeah now you know i'm gonna keep going i'm not moving uh i fixed the stickers for them you know i said you just should have told me i would have i would have done whatever all right but um so yeah no i love that you're down to sit with trump because i think we could set that up make that happen i think that

you know, that would go worldwide, you know? Yeah. Do you see yourself getting into the cannabis industry? Do you see yourself building a brand and taking it around the world? Yeah, one day. For sure. I think you make a lot of money if you do it the right way. And also...

kind of opportunity for people on your team as well to you know give them that side of it so you can continue to you know do what you're doing best and right you know i know you got tj and you know great people on your team that would be that were they have a passion for cannabis that would be a great addition and you know somewhere for them to fit in to run and to do so

Let's talk a little more about like what's going on in LA right now. I know you've seen the fires. Yeah. Thank you for coming out to our city. That fucking mean the world to us. We got 21 Savage in LA during the hardest time. that we've ever had. So like, what do you think is happening with the fire? Do you think this shit is natural? Do you think someone started this shit? I don't see the fire. You haven't seen it online? I saw it, but when you get here, it feel regular.

It don't feel like nothing crazy is going on. Just wait till you go down Malibu. You know where Nobu Malibu is? Yeah. The whole thing burned. Nobu gone? Nobu's still there. It made it. But that whole strip right there? it all burned so it ain't hit la oh yeah it hit the pacific palisades it hit uh the hollywood hills my old house i used to live in in malibu burned to ashes

Oh, it hit the Hollywood Hills? It hit the Hollywood Hills. Yep. Hit the Hollywood Hills. Why they didn't put it out though? Like, why they can't put it out? Um, they're saying there was no water in the fire hydrants and you know, California has such a weird way of operating. Yeah. We don't really know what the fuck happened. It ain't no water, but the ocean right there though. Yeah. So

Ain't we right by the ocean? I wish everybody thought like you. It's one plus one. They don't want to take from the ocean because they say it's going to fuck up the wildlife, like the plants and the trees. But they didn't take from the ocean and everything burned. It's not just the ocean though. They had big budget cuts. They cut the fire department budget by $150 million. So LA went on fire and essentially they cut off a lot of the staff. But no, this is the craziest time that...

This is the craziest time that I think anyone ever been in LA is. What starts a Wi-Fi though? Like where do it come from? So we have the Santa Ana winds. So it's like heavy, heavy winds. And in California, we have laws. that you can't just, you know, clean up all the dead trees and you can't just clean up all the brush because it's environment. It's called Sequa. It's like.

California environmental act of, you know, like there could be an endangered species or endangered animals. So they had let all the dead trees, all the brush, all the weeds for so many years pile up everywhere. so imagine like you go outside your backyard like okay your fence right here you're fenced in all your everything is clean but outside your backyard oh no you're not allowed to touch any of the brush you can't clean none of that up you need a permit so yeah it was like uh

Like a domino effect, like everything just... But how do wind and... how do we equal fire that's what i'm saying so it sparks from a lot of the time the electricity for like the electrical poles from the wind will get knocked down and it just takes one spark to hit the to hit the brush and then it's like it starts so slow and then it goes so fast so it's like wind knocking something over and then boom fire yep

i think i mean there's multiple theories that everybody has like i was just watching mel gibson he's like okay yeah for sure it was it was the wins and the polls okay he was on joe rogan he's like yeah okay yeah basically like somebody started it. Right. You know, but yeah, it's crazy. I mean, um, and I know, I know you have a, I know you have a, you do charity work, right?

and i know we've had these fires would you be up to doing something for la yeah for sure for sure yeah love that love that um so you have the leading by example foundation where you help kids with financial literacy what motivated you to open that foundation and can you tell me a little bit about it um just growing up um like when i first started getting money and stuff like i i didn't really know like

to pay taxes or open up a bank account, just small things. So I thought like, damn, it's probably hella more kids that grew up how I grew up that don't know this stuff too. So I was just like, I'm going to make something to help them type shit. Are you active with the foundation? Yeah. And this foundation, it's in Atlanta. okay but like when we first did it we did like a um online course so it was for like a lot of people the bank account um campaign but my foundation

I do Christmas drives, back-to-school drives, Thanksgiving giveaways, and all that type of stuff. And I donate to other initiatives, too, in Atlanta, too. How did you start that? First, it was this lady named Miss Flystyle. Lady Flystyle, whatever. She like an older woman. And she used to do like her own. Get on back to school stuff, but it was smaller and she's a friend of mama fly style. She a friend of Like somebody I know so we partner with her

And then I ended up doing my own thing, but she still helps too. Nice type shit. So you're so well respected across the music industry. What do you think it took to get to this level where you're at? I know you went through hell, but you're one of the most respected people in the music industry. What do you think it took you to get there? I don't know. I ain't never thought about it. I just be being me. Just regular. Just be you, I guess. Right? Keep it real. What the... So...

with collaborate you've done so many dope collaborations you've been around so many cool people how did these collabs come about are they reaching out to you is it they go both ways like Sometimes they reach out, sometimes I reach out. Sometimes they label reach out. It just be like different scenarios. But every way you can think of, that's how it go. Any way you can think of.

For real. So how did you collaborate with Nudie? How did you find Nudie? I grew up with Nudie. So that was more like just natural. Like we call the same lady grandma, like she raised all of us. So it's like family thing. Yeah, we knew each other before we was both rapping. Like, we knew each other as bad-ass, like, kids. So, that's, like, I wouldn't look at that as, like, no industry thing. That's your brother. Right. Yeah. And then you signed him.

Nah, I ain't signed him. You didn't sign Nudie? Mm-mm. Well, I think a lot of people have been telling me you signed Nudie. You didn't sign Nudie. Nah, I ain't signed him. He got his own record label. Oh, okay. He owned his masters. He owned his shit. He got his own shit. No, I never signed him. But I wanted to sign him. But I didn't really want to sign him. He wouldn't do it, though.

But he was about to sign a deal that didn't let him keep certain things. So I offered to give him the money that the label was trying to give him. To hold off so that he could get those certain things in his contract He was like nah cuz you do enough for me So somehow he bullied the label into goddamn agreeing to his terms anyway type shit. Oh yeah. Yeah. So he got it his way, but that's probably the closest I got to like doing anything. Like we just brothers, like we family, so.

It probably looked like he signed to me because we are one type shit, but no, I never signed that's how close all you guys are like you tj i'm like right away thinking oh this one you know yeah there's one family yeah it is one family girl for sure 100 so One of the biggest records in the world, your song with Post Malone. How did that song come about? How did you connect with Post? Me and Post got the same booking agent.

um share and um he had sent the song and i forgot what i was doing it took me like four months to do that song though damn they kept asking like come on come on send the verse send the verse send the verse I think I just didn't feel like rapping at the time. But I ended up doing the verse just randomly, and it just blew up. That's one of the biggest songs in the world. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. Crazy.

Yo, God. Shout out to Post Malone, man. That's a good dude. Hell yeah. Yeah. Got any more collaborations with him coming soon? For sure. Probably. For sure. Hell yeah. I ain't talk to him in a minute. I got to call him. See what he... Who have you not collaborated with yet? Besides Beyonce. You know, I got to say that. That you want to collaborate with.

Rihanna. Okay. Yeah, probably Rihanna. I'll probably, um... I want to do some shit with Snoop Dogg, too. I feel like Snoop Dogg is just the ultimate. That nigga. He just like Snoop Dogg's just that nigga to me. I don't know why. He just done been through everything and he's still just around. Just still like him. Like I do some shit with Snoop Dogg.

For sure. That's hard. Yeah. You know, when I was younger, I used to be around all these guys. And it's funny because I remember I was with Suge at Houston. And Exhibit was there at Houston's. And I was like, I had just turned 16. Like, literally, it was like, just like right after my 16th birthday. And, you know, like. Exhibit didn't know I was with Suge. There were so many people around, but I had walked up to Exhibit, and I was like, X? I'm like...

Like I really want to give you this weed bro like I got the best OG Kush in LA and You know if I give you something and he looked left he looked right he probably looked at me like He's like, oh, just wait, just wait. And I'm like, no, I pulled out the weed in Houston. I really need to give you some of this weed.

I'm already thinking, like, I'm always giving Suge and people weed, so, like, it's just normal, and I'm in Houston, and I got this ounce of weed on me. So, I was 16. I hadn't seen the exhibit for... 20 years and then just recently exhibit opened up his own weed shops and then he had approached me through some friends like yo i really want to work with traditional like i want to do uh

If you can help with traditional, if you can help with some whatever, like, I want to work with traditional, and I also want to put all your stuff in my stores, and we should lock in. So we started talking. He just invited me to his show. um, he did a show out here in LA and I went to show a bunch of old school, Matt 10 fucking, uh, you know, a bunch of old school guys. And Snoop was there. Snoop performed that night. Exhibit performed that night. And.

I had told him the story. I'm like, I don't know if you remember me, bro. But like when I was a kid, I walked up to you in Houston. I was trying to give you weed. Yeah. And now I'm selling you like.

tons of weed to all your stores right and he's like man that's crazy and like we're sitting in the we got like a sprinter van we're going around la in the sprinter van he taking me to stoop dog concert doing all this and i'm like no bro like for real like i was with shook that night i was trying to give you weed you got shook yeah he was shook but now it's funny because like now i got x hitting me up like yo

What you up to? Like, want to come to this concert? Yeah. You know? Full circle. It's crazy. Yeah. You know, crazy. So right now in your career, you've done so much, so many accomplishments. Do you see yourself? branching off into other genres of music genres yeah like like country nah yeah all right uh rbmv rmb

I probably, no, I ain't finna make no R&B. I listen to it, though. I see you singing a little R&B. Yeah, I sing at home. I ain't finna start trying to be no singer, though. I don't think that's what they like me for. I'm going to stick to doing what got me where I'm, you know. Okay. You ain't going to start growing cocaine, is you? No way. All right. No, no, no. We're going to stay in our lane.

Absolutely. I like that. That's a good one. I know I'm not going to start growing cocaine. Then they're really coming for me. Right. So what about other like. other parts of like industry would you be into acting would you do some acting yeah i'd do some acting if they paying because i heard they don't be paying that good yeah they got to be giving me some money man i like that

I want to do some Elon Musk guy shit. Like build some shit. Build a goddamn car or some shit. And then just sell these cars and just become the richest person in the world. That's the type of shit I want to do. Like different shit. Shit that nobody even know that I'm behind it, but I'm doing it. Type shit. Would you smoke a blunt with Elon Musk?

For sure, I smoke when we eat lime. All right, we're going to make that happen. We're going to figure out how to make this happen. Yeah, for sure. We're going to get to Trump, talk about the legalization is weed. That's his right hand right there. Right. We're going to talk like I'm sure they would be interested in sitting down and having a conversation about what also you could, you know, contribute to Tesla. You know, I know like we say this shit.

But this is real as fuck. Like, this could really happen. Like, we could go with Elon Musk and we could create a 21 Savage fucking rocket ship. You know, a flying car, something cool. Like, I really need to holler at Elon Musk about... you know power consumption in the cannabis industry like you see everything going on over here i wish we could create some kind of alternative you know power source

to for these operations because i'm paying you know 250 000 a month just in this facility for the department of water and power so every month rain or shine whether i'm winning or losing the department of water and power they're like the irs they get 200 grand $250,000, $200,000, $250,000, just from one location. So I think that Elon would have an alternative power source for all these huge operations of cannabis, but one, it'd be better for the environment.

Two, it'll help people like me not have to pay $250,000 to the Department of Water and Power when there's so many better alternative energy sources out there. Right. You can't battery power this shit. This shit is so much high power. And we need Elon Musk. He would tell us better. You know, Elon could set Elon Musk in Donald Trump can frame the cannabis industry into a multi.

trillion dollar industry. Did he smoke? He smoked on Joe Rogan's podcast. Oh, he did? Yeah. Oh. He did. So, and he the richest man in the world. Right. You know? Mm-hmm. You know, the one thing that, you know. That's that's why I like that's why I have so much respect for you. I got so much respect for Trump. I got so much respect for Elon because these guys got so much money. They don't. Donald Trump doesn't need to be running the world.

Elon Musk doesn't need to be sitting there running running the world with Donald Trump, but he really love America they really want to make america better you know so yeah some things people will agree some things people will disagree but i'm not worried about no politics stuff i'm just worried about legalizing weed and things that are one plus one right you know a bunch of logic like what like weed is schedule one and cocaine is schedule two right

How does it this ain't adding up somebody got to tell us like are we reading it right? Are you sure that that's the law? You know like we're literally asking the attorney when I already know it's a hundred percent true, you know, so I'm already Is this true? Is this 100%? But yeah, no, that's 100%. That's what it is. So yeah. Another cool question I got for you. So I know you love tattoos. You got a bunch of tattoos. You got a bunch of ink. Can you tell me?

Three tattoos with the meaning behind them. Three tattoos with the meaning. I got rest in peace to skinny. Was CJ. And I got Rest in Peace Skinny on one of these sides. And then I got Rest in Peace Larry on one side. So three of my friends. That's real. Yeah. So. There's millions of guys out there, millions of people out there in the music industry. They're trying to get to where you are. There's millions of people out there. They look up to you.

What would be your message for everybody out there trying to make it, trying to achieve anywhere close to what you've achieved in this industry? What would be my message? Your message.

Just keep doing what you believe in. Keep going. Keep trying. Because shit, I don't know what happened. I just tried some shit and it just worked. For real. Did you know that X was going to be as big a song as it was? I knew it was going to do something, but I don't be knowing how big nothing going to be for real. But I knew it was a good song. I liked it. So. How about how long did it take you to make Savage Mode? The album? Yep. Shit. That shit was so long ago, bro.

next year I make 10 years since I did it 10 years and it's maybe a month maybe a month maybe a two months yeah it's pretty fast yeah that's pretty fast too much maximum though for sure so i think one thing that the world wants to know because you know everybody deals with

you know i know everybody deals with rap beef differently right everybody got their own way of dealing with it what do you think about all the rap beef that's going on right now what do you think about what's going on with kendrick and drake do you think that that Is it to the point of no return? Or do you think people could squash all that shit and it's just for publicity? I don't know. I don't really believe in rap beef.

Like, I don't come from that world, though. Like, I feel like it depends, like, what world you come from. Like, if you come from, like, book... Like, your book bag used to have, like, raps in it and shit. Man, cool. I feel like those type of people, like, that's, like, their world. Like, that's what they do. But I don't come from that world, so I don't believe in rap beef.

If you say certain shit about me in the song, I'm going to slap the fuck out you when I see you. You're going to have to stand on that shit when you see me. I don't really believe in certain shit. That's just me though. But I be watching battle rap and like... Dudes will be on stage and a dude will be like, yeah, I'll slap your daughter. And they be taking it. They be standing right there like just taking it. So it's like if you sign up for that, then you got to, you know.

But I ain't trying to get in no rap beef. I don't want no rap beef. That's real. I'll be chilling. So, can we expect an album from you soon? I don't know. We just see how shit go. I'm working. I'm working. I'm chilling right now. I'm taking a break. What's the goal for 2025? $300 million. I like that. 300 million. I like that. You know, it mean the world to me that you came on here today. Yeah, for sure. You know? I said I was coming. Oh, no. You got a solid, solid word. I made this for you.

Know you don't want to I know you don't want to get stoned But I think that me and TJ are gonna take some fucking hits off of this Where T.J. at? T.J. ain't finna smoke shit. That's why he done snuck up out of here. He snuck up out? T.J. ain't finna take no hit. What you think of that? That shit hard. But how do it work though?

Want to show you? Yeah, smoke it. Yeah? Want to smoke it? I ain't smoking it. Where the lighter at? Pass me that torch lighter right there. I'm going to show you exactly how to smoke it. Yeah, he ain't he ain't finna do none of that. All right. Hey, justice don't work. This one work? So it's one big blunt. Yeah, one big ass fucking blunt.

Somebody rolled it or like how you do it? They rolled it especially for you. They literally did this custom. Man, that's some crazy shit right there, man. That's the new way to smoke it. That's a lot of weed, bro. Yeah. It's like a QP of weed. It's like four ounces. That's four ounces? Four ounces. Man, get the fuck out of here. I'm telling you. I ain't smoking no shit like that. That's how the fucking Wi-Fi starts. Right there.

Oh, dead as fuck. Fuck no. Hell no. You think this is gonna make you paranoid? Hell yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna be in this bitch looking at everybody like, y'all trying to kill me. For real. No, hard. I'm about to do it. I'm just about to do it. Where's TJ at? He need a smoke disc. TJ ain't finna smoke that. We can bet money he ain't. Well, I appreciate you so much. I think I want to get you some food. I hope you like the gift I got you.

For sure. I know you're going to be able to fill that thing up. Yeah, for sure. I already know. But my brother, thank you so much for everything. This is like, for me, it's like... I really feel like our industry is hurting so much right now and there's not enough attention on our industry and the fact that you're doing something like this, there's such a big amount of cannabis people.

that would love to hear all this, what we talked about today. Because we're not talking just about rap stuff. We're talking about, like, I want to make weed normal. I want to normalize weed. Weed should be for everybody. If people are drinking alcohol, people should be able to smoke weed. All of our friends and people that we know that have been locked up for weed, prison time.

Like, and what cocaine is schedule two, weed schedule one, your microphone, your voice. I feel like as a team, we could get enough people together to lobby and be like, no, this is what needs to happen. So. Let's make that happen. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Ready to get some Jamaican food? Let's do it. Come on. All right, so right now we're doing the 21-shot challenge. I'm going to give you 21 shots. Every shot you make, you get a pound of weight. All right? additional tuck.