Abraham-Joseph who is famously known as 21 Savage has granted his first interview since leaving the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after he was accused of being an illegal immigrant from the United Kingdom.
The rapper (Abraham-Joseph) who since his ordeal in the hands of ICE, and the outpour of support, gave an interview with Good Morning America where he spoke about how he was scared of being deported from a country he has called his country since as a child, and how the whole thing keeps playing in his head.
On whether he was worried that he was going to be deported while in custody, he said:
“Yeah, but I feel like I done been through so much in my life, like, I learned to embrace the times when I’m down ’cause they always build me up and take me to a new level in life,” he said.
“So it’s like even if I’m sitting in a cell on 23-hour lockdown, in my mind, I know what’s gonna come after that. So I’m not happy about it. But I’m accepting of it,” he added.
On what his mother told him about such challenges such as the one he is having with ICE, Abraham-Joseph said:
“My mama told me to picture where I wanna be,” 21 Savage said, describing what was going on in his mind when he was detained.
“She said, ‘Visualize yourself, whatever you wanna do, just close your eyes and visualize yourself doing that. And as long as you do that, you will never be in jail.'”
Abraham-Joseph said he never thought they were actually going to take him into custody when he was arrested on the 3rd of February, saying “I was just driving. And I just seen guns and blue lights. And, then, I was in the back of a car. And I was gone,” he said.
Asked if he was told that he was under arrest, the rapper said, “No. They didn’t — they didn’t say anything. They just said, ‘We got Savage.'”
“It was definitely targeted. There were helicopters,” he added, later clarifying that there was one helicopter.
Abraham-Joseph, who was born in 1992, said that he arrived in the U.S. when he was 7 years old, but then left the country in 2005 to attend his uncle’s funeral and then returned to the U.S. that same year.
Speaking on America and if he could recall his childhood and how he came to overstay his Visa in America, he said:
“I didn’t even know what a visa was,” Abraham-Joseph said.
“I was seven when I first came here. And we had left in, like, 2005 ’cause my uncle died, my Uncle Foster. So we went back to go to his funeral, and, then, we came back,” he added. “So that’s why I think [ICE] got it confused where they thought, like, that was my first coming.”
“I went into first grade here, so I don’t really remember too much. I remember, like, my grandma house, and that’s probably about it. I didn’t really do much there,” he said, adding, “I’ve been Atlanta probably 20 years, 19 years. I’m from Atlanta, in my eyes.” he said