21 Savage Taps Donald Glover, Caleb McLaughlin, and Natasha Lyonne for ‘American Dream’ Trailer

Update: Jan. 25, 2024 – 21 Savage‘s American Dream biopic and its trailer were a spoof, the rapper said in an interview on podcast Club Shay Shay with Shannon Sharpe.

A film inspired by 21 Savage’s life is on its way. On Monday, the rapper, who recently appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone, shared the trailer for his upcoming American Dream: the 21 Savage Story film, which features both Donald Glover and Caleb McLaughlin playing him at different points in his life.

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The trailer shows the Stranger Things actor playing 21 Savage as a child as he sees a person close to him being detained. “These people, they think we’re savages,” a woman seemingly representing Savage’s mom, Heather Joseph, tells McLaughlin. “Remember the wishing star. Whenever you feel lost, just remember I’m looking up at the same star… That star is your dream and they can never take it.”

The trailer fast-forwards to an upset Savage sitting at an interrogation before rapping and reminiscing about his youth: from being in class to breaking into homes to being jumped by his classmates. “Memories in my head/the devil talking to me,” he raps in the visual. “I know Satan is down that path, but God’s walking with me.”

The film is set to be released on Independence Day, while the “music inspired by the film” will drop on Jan. 12.

The trailer later sees Glover playing a younger version of Savage, likely in his early 20s. It also sees his home being raided by ICE and him in immigration court. The trailer ends with a shot of Natasha Lyonne seemingly knighting Savage, and later Savage alongside his seeming partner and two of his children.

After the rap sequence, the trailer returns to Glover as Savage inside the studio with a friend for some dialogue.

“When I first got in, they ain’t even giving me a name. Just number 21. [They] treated us like Savages,” says Glover as Savage.

“That’s your name,” the friend says. “Savage 21.”

21 Savage appears on the most recent cover of Rolling Stone and shared that his name represents the 2100, a Decatur gang he was affiliated with, a former propensity for theft and shooting, and the deaths that came with that life.

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