In his latest project, Future is focused on identity. After retreating from social media and laboring day and night on his latest album, FUTURE, Future has delivered a mixed bag of explorations into his many identities. From Future to Pluto to Super Future to Fire Marshall Future to Future Hendrix, Nayvadius DeMun Wilburn goes by many names. Throughout FUTURE, he shouts out each of these titles, deftly switching between them as he swaggers through diverse beats and ponders his relationship with drugs, women, designer clothes, and his life dealing on the street.
On the tails of the underwhelming single “Used to This,” Maroon 5’s disappointing “Cold,” and numerous wildly successful albums and features, Future returns to himself on his latest project. Dishing out 63 minutes of solo, feature-free trap music, he reminds us what made him famous. In this epic project, Future stylistically explores his base as Super Future and Young Pluto, and expands his range as Future Hendrix. Having built himself up on hard-driving but detached trap bangers, Future delivers once again on tracks like “Rent Money,” in which he checks off the list of traditional trap music tropes over a choral, expansive instrumental. “Super Trapper” strikes a similar tone, but seems poised to become the breakout hit of the record. Throughout the work, these songs serve as a reminder of how Future has found a style that works for him and that can consistently provide high-energy party tracks. However, this is a comfortable formula for Future, and he at times uses it as a crutch to fill space in the album. His recipe for success, involving growling vocals, bassy beats, and charismatic ad-libs, has been reinterpreted, repackaged, and legitimately plagiarized into near ubiquity by both collaborators and competitors. The style dominates a strong majority of FUTURE.
In response, Future confronts his imitators, including Desiigner, openly mocking their spastic, unintelligible ad-libbing in a skit at the end of the song “Zoom.” In the wake of both his and Desiigner’s overwhelming success, the jabs seem unnecessary, and the very adlibs he takes issue with arise later in Future’s own album. However, Future continues to explore new sounds, heard in the elated verses on “Zoom,” and the track’s druggy beat that seems reminiscent of the Breaking Bad title theme. The song’s chorus “Turbo switching lanes / Hublot switch your watch” and the wholly unexpected noises Future interjects are instantly memorable, while the beat and Future’s flow are perfectly paired, showing the exceptional sophistication of the producers behind 808 Mafia.
In songs such as these, Future fully embraces Future Hendrix, whom he said his fans would not be able to understand before. “You can’t give them everything on the first go around because they might not understand it,” he discussed in a 2017 interview with Zane Lowe, “we break barriers, so when I put Future Hendrix in front of you, you [need] to be able to give it the right listen.” Future’s sound is not especially accessible, and his innovations could be similarly off-putting for his fans. However, like the inimitable Jimi Hendrix, Future Hendrix is pushing the very style he pioneered into new territory. This is most evident on “I’m so Groovy,” a minimalist celebration of Future’s place among modern rap royalty. The highlight of the song, however, is in his increasingly strained “mm-hm” ad-lib. With each squeal, Future sounds as if his voice may falter, only to deliver another punchy brag and self-affirming “mm-hm.” Future edges towards a heartfelt ballad on “When I Was Broke,” reminiscing about a lost girlfriend over a piano-driven beat that shivers with humming distortions. The lines “She ain’t leave when I was broke / I can see you was givin’ up / And that’s what killed me the most” are a stark change from Future’s usual attitude towards his companions, lending sincerity to Future’s bared chest.
FUTURE rounds out with “Feds Did a Sweep,” which jumps between pained reflection and righteous anger at the loss of twenty of his friends. Future Hendrix gives the song a flute-based instrumental and dark subject matter to send off his listeners, hinting that he is capable of the autobiographical narrative common among rap’s founding generation, but only when he is Future Hendrix. Future has announced a follow-up album to Feb. 17th’s FUTURE, entitled HNDRXX, to be released on Feb. 24. Together, these albums could create a virtuosic FUTURE HNDRXX collection that completes Future’s exploration of his own identity and transitions him fully into the inventive, lithe, and pensive rapper he suggests on FUTURE.
Voice’s Choices: “I’m So Groovy,” “Super Trapper,” “Feds Did a Sweep”
