As far as the mainstream is concerned, 2025 has been a dismal low for hip-hop: November saw the Billboard top 40 without a single rap song for the first time since 1990, and it’s not hard to see why when you consider what the biggest releases in the genre actually were this year. Were we really putting our faith in ‘$ome $exy $ongs 4 U’ to make some noise? Was Playboi Carti’s ‘MUSIC’ ever actually going to live up to the hype? Now at the end of the year, is 21 Savage the rapper who can finally break through and deliver some top-quality chart-toppers? The answer is a resounding, and unsurprisingly, no.

Let’s lead our review off with a question: who is ‘WHAT HAPPENED TO THE STREETS?’ for? At first glance, you might assume it’s for the fans, who’ve pushed projects like ‘Issa Album,’ ‘i am > i was’ and last year’s ‘american dream’ into seeing success time and time again. Listening to 21 Savage’s newest material though, it’s hard to imagine any trap fans finding much meat on these bones— seriously, is there anyone out there overjoyed to see such feature artists as Lil Baby and GloRilla on the project? Abraham-Joseph once again settles into some particularly safe and straightforward material here, recycling the tired flows and boring trap aesthetics he’s always leaned on: the only difference here is that the rapper himself doesn’t even seem inspired by the material (and that he ad-libs ’21’ far less often than normal, thank the lord). Perhaps ‘WHAT HAPPENED TO THE STREETS?’ is for your diehard trap fans who loathe to see the genre take even a single step outside its narrowly defined box— 21 Savage has done his utmost to appease that consumer base, it seems.

Even that demographic should find the vast majority of this material incredibly generic and half-assed though— this is not just a plain-old recycling of dull ideas, but an active watering-down of a formula the world is already tired of. Tell us: do you want to hear 21 Savage and GloRilla spit the word ‘dogsh*t’ at you over and over again? Or perhaps the barebones hook on ‘HA’ would be more to your tastes? Or better yet, maybe the uncomfortable pairing of a still-licking-his-wounds Drake and a baby’s-first-trap-beat instrumental on ‘MR RECOUP’ would hit the spot? If there is some salvageable material to satiate the fanbase’s thirst, it must surely come from the tried-and-true ‘WHERE YOU FROM’ and the genuinely grimy ‘STEPBROTHERS:’ outside these choice examples, the trap on offer here comes straight from Atlanta’s bargain bin. Find us a listener who’s head over heels in love with ‘POP IT’ or ‘J.O.W.Y.H (JUMP OUT)’— they do not exist.

Perhaps the record has more to say in its lyrics then: if there is an intriguing aspects to ‘WHAT HAPPENED TO THE STREETS?,’ it’s surely the promise of deeper meaning brought about by its title and artwork. But a conscious rap epic, this is not. 21 Savage has used his platform to remind us, yet again, that he is a very dangerous man who sleeps with a lot of attractive women— please, do not question why that message needs repeating so often, lest we forget. The vast majority of the record is devoted to extravagant displays of carnal hedonism, throwing out illusions to violence about as readily as the fanbase will throw out this album. Where much of the fun of trap can often come from the characters behind the music, 21 Savage is as plain as they come: if the tales on ‘WHAT HAPPENED TO THE STREETS?’ are meant to be exaggerated, the rapper himself is not in on the joke. It’s telling that a single verse from Latto on ‘POP IT,’ vulgar as it may be, stand out more than any number from Abraham-Joseph: he is a man with nothing to say, and no clever means to deliver his empty message either.

So, once again: who is ‘WHAT HAPPENED TO THE STREETS?’ for? By its conclusion, the record has mellowed out into a somewhat sentimental collection of rap tunes, becoming more melodic thanks to the efforts of Metro Boomin on ‘GANG OVER EVERYTHING’ and Jawan Harris on closer ‘I WISH.’ Even if these cuts weren’t so stale though, they would still clash against the rest of the album’s messaging. 21 Savage’s latest effort is a poor facsimile of earlier work, with no direction or inspiration behind its creation: it is another album from Abraham-Joseph, and even that feels generous. A project as boring and one-note as this never had a chance in hell of reviving trap: instead, the record is actively digging its own grave.