22 Savage is a very famous rapper and a comedy arist who hails from Atlanta. He is widely known for the fact that he stole his stage name from a legendary rapper called 21 Savage.
After reaching fame and recognition he has changed his name from 22 Savage to Young 22.
Early years
He was born as MacArthur Johnson on October 8, 1996 in a town named Baton Rouge in Louisiana, United States. He grew up in a poverish part of town with parents who did their best and worked very hard.
They discovered MacArthur’s talent for comedy very fast but were never quite interested in it. His parents had no expectations that he would excel and succeed in comedy or music.
He was educating at Tara high school and was known as the school’s comedian. MacArthur was never a great pupil and he often interrupted the class.
He was just a student at high school when he realized that comedy is his thing. He used his social media account to release his own sketches and to tell his story to the people.
His favorite social media platform was Vine and soon he became popular on it. He also became recognized in his hometown Baton Rouge in Louisiana and people started stopping him in the street and taking photos with him.
He created various characters such as Mighty Mike and FunnyAss Mike in order to make hillarious memes in which he made impressions. His biggest helper in this was his half-brother Wings.
He was a video maker and 22 Savage often guested in his videos. The two of them made a bunch of them and loved to do it because they had similar comedy taste.
Career Development
A little while after he finished high school and graduated he focused on rapping and was able to turn the limelight to himself with creating Mighty Mike character.
This huge interest and views on the internet earned him a contract with a record label.
He has signed a contract with “Travis James Entertainment” which was an independent label at that time.
The label claimed that they were thrilled to sign him because he had a different style and brought something new in the hip hop world.
His big hit song which came out under his alias Mighty Mike was called “Hit that Bit 4 the Gram”. It was released in 2015.
This music video was seen a lot and it gained him 400,000 views on his YouTube channel.
How Mighty Mike became 22 Savage? A lot of people told MacArthur that he is very much alike to 21 Savage, and that he even sounds like him a lot.
He decided that it would be stupid to miss such a chance to be recognized through this similarity so he changed his stage name and performed as 22 Savage.
His first song which he made under his new stage name was titled “No Heart”.
This hit song was released in 2017, and it held popular line:”This ain’t 21, bitch, this 22″.
The name of this song was also connected with 21 Savage so it wasn’t a nice thing to do but it seemed that 22 Savage didn’t care much about it.
This was especially rude of him because he even stole the name of the album “Savage Mode” from him.
This wasn’t something that was easily tolerated in the hip hop world but 21 Savage only showed his anger over social media and never met 22 Savage personally.
The single which elevated him to a whole new level was the one named “Jumpin'”.
It was released also in 2017 and was a part of the album named “Nothing 2 Live 4” which was released on his SoundCloud account.
This single gained over one million views and soon went viral because of the rhymes in the song which talked about how MacArthur is a much better artist than 21 Savage.
The following singles named “Pay 4 It”,”Hit that 22” and “Run It” were all big hits and gained him a huge income.
In 2017, MacArthur finally decided that it is time to stop being Savage 22 and anothers man copy so he changed his name to Young 22.
This change of name to Young 22 was announced on his Twitter account.
In the summer of 2017, Young 22 has made a single named “Kylie’s Daddy”. This single caused a lot of controversy since he rapped about Kylie Jenner, a popular internet celebrity and one of the Kardashian sisters. He rapped about his infatuation with her and his lust for her body.
The single was also dissing Tiga, a rapper who was her boyfriend at that time.
The song was made in collaboration with teen sisters Iliana Eve and DJ Hannahbella and with guest appearance from Ziggy.
It was actually sister’s song and was made as one of the promo singles for their debut album called “Daddy Issues”.
21 Savage wasn’t happy by the fact that MacArthur stole his image so he confronted him on Twitter about it.
22 Savage called out rapper 21 Savage to the boxing ring to fight over the “Savage” name. He stated that the winner should keep the name.
He parodied a single from 21 Savage named “Red Opps” and made his own version called “Black Opps”. It was released on his album “Thug” in 2017 and can be seen on internet with markings: 21 Savage diss.
22 Savage is known to collaborate with Zeuz who is another copy artist but he copies a famous rapper Drake. They have released a single “Stealin’ Views”.
It was a single where they dissed both artists they impersonate: 21 Savage and Drake.
As Funny Mike, MacArthur has 4,3 million followers on his Instagram channel.
Personal life
He has an older sister who sometimes show up in his videos but he is much closer to his brother.
He has a lot of tattoos on his body, including chest, arms and back.
MacArthur was involved in a feud which ended up with his charge for murder snd illegal possesion of a gun.
He has killed another young rapper named Richard Phillips after an argument in the parking lot.
Although he claimed that it was self defence, the cameras told another story.
His girlfriend is named Jaliyah Monet. She can often be seen in his videos as a guest.
She is known over Instagram for her “Life of Jaliyah” account which she opened in 2012.
Young 22 and Jaliyah have their own YouTube channel called “Funny Mike & Jaliyah”.
Jaliyah Monet has almost one million followers on her Instagram channel where he posts her photos and videos.
She owns a beautiful red Ferrari and Young 22 has a Mercedes Benz. She posted a picture of her car on her Instagram channel and asked her fans to help her name it.
Young 22’s mother, has her own moniker as “Momma Jones” and has her own Youtube channel too. It is called “FunnyMike Mom”.
She loves social media and she often posts photos. She loves her kids very much and is proud of what they have become.
Quick summary
Full name: MacArthur Johnson
Date of birth: October 8, 1996
Birthplace: Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States
Age: 22
Profession: comedian, rapper, YouTube star, Viner
Height: 1, 83m
Weight: 70 kgs
Net Worth: $800,000
