Let’s go back to where it started.
In 2012, Future made his first blip on the radar. Behind a clutch of singles and features, his debut album Pluto became a sleeper favourite on the Atlanta rap scene. A workmanlike mixtape output and a consistent high standard lay the foundations for an explosive mainstream arrival on Honest, a pop-leaning album with a feature list including Kanye West and Andre 3000.
Honest flopped commercially and critically then Future broke up with his fiancée Ciara, with whom he had a child. While Future fought her in court, she recovered with SuperBowl MVP Russell Wilson.
In the gutter, Future hauled himself up with Fuck Up With Some Commas. It’s a masterclass in contemporary rap: the beat is nuclear whilst Future works both as a verbal riot squad and a rockstar penning an infectiously catchy hook. The 56 Nights mixtape followed, spearheaded by March Madness, and it became impossible to ignore the noise surrounding Future.
Once a blip, Future came up to his sophomore album Dirty Sprite 2 as the centre of attention and delivered. Where Honest played to the pop radio too much, DS2 unapologetically shuns it. Under the grips of a messy codeine addiction, Future drowns his voice in reverb and bassy trap beats. The album is haunting yet addictive: it’s midnight trap music for the troubled thinker who just wants to stop thinking.
From that point onwards, the music world collectively decided that Future had arrived. His collaborative album with Drake, What A Time To Be Alive, felt like a meeting of mega powers ala Watch The Throne rather than a NehruvianDOOM mentor-mentee relationship.
Future’s legendary output of mixtapes continued, but the innovation didn’t. Beast Mode, Purple Reign and EVOL were all great projects, but the excitement surrounding each release evaporated. The frostiness that made Future so fascinated had dulled, leaving behind a bare sheet of ice.
That’s where the narrative was supposed to end. Future took the longest hiatus of his career: twelve months, an eternity in Atlanta’s bustling rap scene. While Future stewed quietly, the whole landscape shifted. Gucci Mane came out of prison with renewed vigour, Migos became international stars and a teenager named Desiigner took Future’s formula and sold it to commercial radio as a meme.
That’s the context leading up to FUTURE, the self-titled return from exile that dropped out of nowhere in the middle of February. Styled as a reintroduction, FUTURE burns through the full repertoire in 17 tracks.
“Got the money comin’ in, it ain’t no issues/I just a fucked a rapper bitch, I should diss you” is the first two bars we hear and the most succinct summary of what Future is about: he’s brazen, subtly witty and effortlessly catchy.
It’s the kind of line that dances through your head almost instinctively. That knack is impressive in isolation, but Future’s genius is emphasised when you realise just how often he does this: Future has released over 329 solo songs since 2010 and is a prolific feature artist.
The project zips through Future’s three personas: the monster, the party-starter and the romantic, generously allowing time for all over the lengthy 17-track project. It’s an exercise in flexing – a middle finger to imitators (who get parodied on Zoom) and a Jordan shrug from the rest of the rap game. The time away from the limelight hasn’t softened Future, it only made him hungrier.
FUTURE lingered in the public sphere for just seven days before HNDRXX dropped, a second album that incorporated more R&B-leaning emotive songs. If FUTURE was the reintroduction, HNDRXX is the evolution.
It is the redux of Honest, Future’s initial shot at becoming a true crossover star. In a revealing interview with Zane Lowe, Future conceded as much.
“HNDRXX is super personal. This is the Honest album that I was supposed to be honest about,” he said.
The album is a mature, nuanced view at moving past heartbreak. It would have been clean to make something fully graduated from anguish, a soundtrack for coming out the other side and finding a light at the end of the tunnel.
That would have been easier, but a disservice to an artist like Future. The honest appraisal of Future, a man torn between bad blood still bubbling and a sincere desire move on, makes for a compelling listen.
We see the full spectrum of the man: unsympathetic on My Collection as he reads Ciara’s sexual history like a shopping list. He’s then endearingly tender on Solo, gentle as he harmonises with Rihanna on Selfish. On the Weeknd-featuring Comin Out Strong, Future is quietly assured, equipped with a veteran temperament that we’ve never before seen from him.
FUTURE has been generally received as the better of the two projects, which makes sense. This is the lane Future has been in for nearly a decade. He has recorded and refined so many takes on this formula that he is rightfully on top of the world. Instead, HNDRXX represents something far more exciting: growth.
There are few rebounds as good as this in modern hip-hop history, and even less have done it twice in their career. The first time Future flopped and lost it all, he stumbled back into public conscience through a self-destructive masterpiece as a grieving, messy wreck hooked on a gamut of drugs. The second time around, Future slinks forward savvy, smart and more successful than ever.
At this point, who knows if the heavily rumoured third album is coming? It really doesn’t matter. Anything Future wanted to achieve with this historic flex has been fulfilled. He simultaneously reasserted himself as the leading force out of Atlanta and dared to throw himself back out there as a commercially viable pop star. Calling it a comeback would be cliché and frankly, incorrect. This is an artist arriving at his creative peak, two years after we all thought he’d reached the ceiling. The prospect of what’s next is tantalising.
- Words by Reece Hooker who tweets here.
