Future, he Atlanta rapper, is back with yet another album. Self-titled by Future is his fourth release since DS2 back in 2015. As you can see, Future does not chose to slow down any time soon.
FUTURE guides listeners to more deep cuts Future has been working on. Don’t look forward to hearing a club jam like “Jumpman” with Drake or a chilling, bass heavy tune like “Low Life” with the Weeknd, because this album has no features. Yep, just a straight forward listen to nothing but Future.
If a feature-less Future album might be a turn off to the first thought of it, you might be right. This album is the same Future that blew up in 2015 and has not really taken a sharp turn. The songs are polluted with auto-tune verses of trapping, pill popping and slut shaming, but what else to expect? It’s Future. His fans and rap fans in general will find some gems in the newest installment of the never-ending trap star.
One standout in the 17-track project is the song “When I Was Broke.” This is one of the hundreds of tracks that are not like the regular, old Future. Instead of rapping, he takes a singing approach to the track. Future sings about being a human more than being a celebrity. At the end of the day, rich or poor, he is still the same man who entered the game hungry. The production weirdly remissness sounds of Human After All by the robotic electronic duo Daft Punk, but with trap elements of drums and bass bombs. This is an all-around solid song around some filler tracks.
As far as the electrifying bangers come, Future starts off his album with one. “Rent Money” is a pristine opener to the album with a bang right off the bat. He simply snaps on this one. Future raps over a heavenly but hype beat about moving drugs to pay rent, while paying his respects to previous drug lords and gangsters such as Al Capone, John Gotti and “John Doe.”
The biggest song of the album and the one most likely to go mainstream is the track “Draco.” Draco, which is the name for a shorter, French AK-47, is the topic of choice on this booming track because of the likes of rapper Soulja Boy, who is famously known for recently pulled out his Draco out of his book bag while beefing with another rapper. The hook “Draco season with the bookbag/ Rat tat, got a little kick back” is just so catchy that it will catch on with the rest of the country in party environments.
The only real problem with this album is that there is just too much. The majority of the songs can survive as standalone songs, but the combination of all the 17 songs in one can be overwhelming. Future is great in certain situations (parties, driving or even exercising), but because of his productivity his sound can be boring really fast.
Filler is another problem. Songs like “Outta Time” or “Flip” are simply just not needed. “Outta Time” has a very interesting beat, but the subject matter is really about nothing, and “Flip” just centers around the luxury of a Range Rover. The added skits at the end of some songs do not work out as well. It doesn’t add anything significant to the album, so those are mostly skippable.
Overall, FUTURE is what you expected: just another Future album. It is like other Future albums, but at the same time it is unique in its own way. All the tracks, with no features, are just deep cuts of Future’s discography that will age well when Future is no longer dropping projects at every which way.
Speaking of Future dropping way too much music, he also announced yet another album to release Friday titled HNDRXX. According to Rolling Stone, this album will be more radio friendly and include features from The Weeknd and Rihanna. It seems to be a continuation or second half to his self-titled album.
cottintf14@bonaventure.edu
