At 12 AM on February 14th, Offset of the rap group Migos released the first single, Red Room, off his upcoming solo project, The Set Gala, along with a visual. Known for his hype, banger tracks along with Quavo and Takeoff, this song sees Offset go in a different approach for his solo effort. The song goes into detail of the Migos rapper’s come up from the ghettos of Atlanta, to blowing up as an artist, up until the point of crashing and almost dying in a bad car accident last spring. He spits about growing up with just his mom, and how he was finally able to repay her after music started paying off by getting her her own house. The remembrance of his grandma’s cooking is melancholy, as he can only think about how “humble and sweet” she was, undeserving of the slum life they were subject too. As he got older, he got mixed up with gangs and drug life, speaking of his times breaking into houses and robbing them. He had to “sleep on his feet”, always carrying a gun in fear of being killed in a drive by while in the trap. Later on, he speaks of the moms he’s seen break down and cry because the “cops shot their babies”. All in all, the lyrics depict a miserable and dark time in Offset’s life, needing to turn to crime just to survive and protect his family, while at the same time risking hurting them himself.
![Image result for offset](https://cbsnews1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2018/07/21/775f71c6-b667-4c4f-b5b6-7853478ffe70/offset.jpg)
In the visual, even more is depicted of Offset’s painful upbringing. Scenes of shootings, police break ins, and a graphic remake of the crash that influenced the entire song are all included. These scenes bring a certain life to the song that no lyrics could, showing Offset’s entire life up until that point in only a couple minutes, and it really helps demonstrate for the audience just how much he needed to work to get to the point he’s at now. Along with this, the visual hints at Offset’s current life, with scrawled writing of the names of his kids on the walls, possibly referring to how he would never go back to that lifestyle due to his duty to his family.
![Image result for offset red room](https://static.stereogum.com/uploads/2019/02/Offset-Red-Room-video-1550155667-640x296.jpg)
Overall, Red Room sees Offset taking his fans into a much more personal aspect of his life than ever before. His flows and skills as a rapper are only enhanced by his storytelling ability, and it’s very exciting to see how the rest of his album will turn out when it finally drops.