How did 21 Savage’s British brother die?
In November 2020, the UK-born American rapper 21 Savage received some awful news—his little brother had been killed in London. He was only 27 at the time, and the circumstances of his death were horrendous—he’d been stabbed to death after getting into a fight with someone he knew. Paramedics tried to save him when they reached him, but they couldn’t. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Savage’s brother, Terrell Davis-Emmons, had been a rapper in his own right, performing under the stage name of TM1way.
According to reports, he’d been in the Brixton area of south London to visit his grandmother, when, as he walked along the street, he encountered an old acquaintance. This guy, Tyrece Fuller, approached Davis-Emmons, leading to a fight breaking out. A knife was produced, and, ultimately, Fuller used it to kill Davis-Emmons. He was arrested and later sentenced to ten years imprisonment for his crime.
21 Savage took to Instagram following his brother’s untimely death, posting a photo of them together as kids, as well as more recent pictures of Davis-Emmons. “Can’t believe somebody took you baby bro,” he captioned his post. “I know I took my anger out on you I wish I could take that shit back.”
This was another heartbreaking loss among so many that 21 Savage had experienced in life, even though he was still only in his late 20s at this time. He’d previously lost another younger brother to violence, as he spoke about in a 2016 feature in The Fader. “He was a real wild n—,” Savage remembered of his lost brother, whose name was Quantivayus Joseph. “Little wild n—. Hothead. Bat out of hell, bad as hell.”
Savage has a tattoo on his face of a dagger, which, it turns out, serves as a tribute to Quantivayus Joseph, also known as Tayman, following his shooting during a bad drug deal. The design was inspired by Tony Montana’s blade tattoo in Scarface, which 21 Savage and his brothers had committed themselves to getting for themselves. But Tayman went ahead without the others and got it himself, getting it inked on his face rather than on his hand as had initially been planned. Following his death, Savage got it, too.
This, bleakly, is not the only tattoo of Savage 21’s to mark a loved one’s death. He has others on his body in tribute to two of his closest friends, Larry and Johnny, who were both shot to death, as well as to the mother of Larry, who was killed at the same time. Savage himself was shot along with Johnny, but he obviously survived his wounds.
But the point is that, by the end of his 20s, Savage had already experienced extraordinary levels of violence and loss. His little brother’s killing in London was, sadly, just more to deal with.