In his first interview after his sudden arrest by immigration authorities, rapper 21 Savage (née Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph) said that the arrest was "definitely targeted." Abraham-Joseph was riding in a car in Atlanta on Sunday, February 3 — hours before the Super Bowl — when authorities pulled the car over and arrested him. Though he was an Atlanta, Georgia fixture, the rapper lived in the U.K. until he was 7. His visa reportedly expired in 2006, though, leaving him at the mercy of ICE. When he was arrested, Abraham-Joseph revealed, he wasn't even told why he was being arrested or that he was being arrested at all.
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"They didn't say nothing," Abraham-Joseph recalled on Good Morning America. "They just said, 'We got Savage.'"
Later, when ABC's Linsey Davis asked if the arrest seemed like a "random traffic stop," Abraham-Joseph replied, "It was definitely targeted."
Rapper 21 Savage tells @ABC News' @LinseyDavis that he was "definitely targeted" by ICE in exclusive interview on @GMA. https://t.co/6hOI6VROMv pic.twitter.com/BUgNTKOmzD
— ABC News (@ABC) February 15, 2019
When asked if he believed that the arrest was related to the release of the music video for his song "A Lot," which contains the lyric "I couldn’t imagine my kids stuck at the border," is connected to the arrest, the rapper demurred.
"My lawyers think that [I'm being targeted because of the lyric]," he replied. "I don't really know. I would see why people would think that, but I really can't say."
Following his arrest, Jay-Z hired attorney Alex Spiro to help get Abraham-Joseph out of custody. (Spiro joined Dina LaPolt, who was already working on the case.) The rapper was released on bond on Tuesday, and is awaiting a deportation trial, per TMZ.