Stereogum: "Future Is Finished, His Era Is Over" *L.R*
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"Future is finished. He’s tapped out. He has nothing left to offer. "
After showing up on Fat Joe and Remy Ma’s “All The Way Up” remix and Pusha T’s “Drug Dealers Anonymous,” “I Got The Keys” is supposed to be the next step in Jay’s reengagement with rap music. But it doesn’t work. He’s still talking about the time he spent selling drugs, more than two decades ago, but his bars are rushed and cluttered, his almighty ? -flow gone from his body. The synth-whistling, subdued trap beat doesn’t work for him. The triumphal DJ Khaled braying doesn’t work for him. The crisp black-and-white cinematography, the jailhouse imagery, the many rap B-lister cameos: It all feels miscalculated, a doomed attempt to recapture Jay’s regal, arrogant cool without compromising his present-day mogul standing. You have to go to Tidal or Apple Music to watch the turgid, uninspired video. It’s a mess.
If Jay was trying to tap back into the energy of right-now rap music, he whiffed spectacularly, and it’s not entirely his fault. He picked the wrong guy to help him out.
After a blinding, historic year-and-a-half run, Future is finished. He’s tapped out. He has nothing left to offer. Less than a year after he capped off a great mixtape run with the empire-solidifying DS2, Future has gone through the full down-slope of a career arc. That moment was absolutely thrilling. Future was already an influencer, but he still seemed to be discovering his voice during the great Monster/Beast Mode/56 Nights run. He found strange new melodic possibilities in his beaten-down codeine flow, more ways to express coldness. All of a sudden, he sounded like a generational icon, a man with a serious sense of purpose even when he was simply rapping about making himself so numb that he could barely walk. For that run, Future stared into the depths of despair and made that sh*t sound cool. On “I Got The Keys,” he sounds like he wants to finish repeating his two phrases over and over so that he can go back to sleep. He sounds like he’s just there. He’s never really sounded like that before.
I worried about this earlier this year, when Future followed the pretty-good Purple Reign with the relatively flat EVOL. But Project E.T., Future’s new tape with DJ Esco, makes it all too obvious to ignore. Purple Reign and EVOL at least had one undeniable hit apiece. (That would be “Wicked” and “Low Life,” respectively.) Project E.T. has nothing. Future’s problem right now isn’t the absolute glut of music he’s released over the past few years. It’s not the fatigue that comes with the horde of Future soundalikes who have bubbled up in the past two years, or the numbing dominance of the Atlanta trap sound. Those things are problems, but they’re not the problem.
The problem is Future. He just doesn’t care anymore. Case in point: The tape ends with an absolutely endless skit, with two people imitating Italian accents and pretending to be Full Force in House Party, talking about all the ways they’re going to kick somebody’s fu*kin’ ass. It’s almost unlistenable, but at least there’s some life to it. I honestly hope the two people in the skit are Future and Esco, since that at least means that Future is capable of having some fun in the studio.
Throughout Project E.T., Future absolutely flatlines. Juicy J, who has been on autopilot for about five years straight, just mops the floor with Future on “My Blower.” On the would-be hit “100it Racks,” 2 Chainz dunks Future in a vat of toxic waste and then smashes him with a car like he was that one bad guy in Robocop. The tape is officially credited to Esco, even though Future is on almost every song, and the only moments it really comes alive are the ones where Future is nowhere in sight. (The Nef The Pharaoh/Casey Veggies collab “Stupidly Crazy”? Pretty good!) Future stays in full-on muttery-monotone mode throughout, generally giving off the impression that he’s stuck at an office job, at 3PM on a Tuesday, and the breakroom has run out of Keurig cartridges. “Ratchet-ass bi*ch, I’m tryna fu*k you right now,” he offers on “Right Now,” and he delivers it like a long sigh. And even when he’s rhyming “Donnie Brasco” with “fu*k your baby mama in her as*hole,” he sounds like he’s barely paying attention, like rapping is just how he’s killing time while he’s doing data entry. I don’t know what’s going on with him.
Maybe something will happen and he’ll get excited about making music again. Maybe he’ll be re-energized. That does happen. But right now, it’s clearly pure drudgery for him. And judging by his new Rolling Stone cover-story profile, he’s worried about even the idea of switching up what he’s doing. (And honestly the mere fact that Future is on the cover of Rolling Stone is further reason to be worried.) After all, when he tried to cross over on Honest, it didn’t work, and he had to remake himself as a mixtape monster. So now that he has his lane, he’s afraid to leave it, even amid diminishing returns. At one point in the profile, Future is talking about the possibility of settling down, but he might as well be talking about his music: “Why fix something if it’s not broke? If I break it, and I try to fix it again, it might not be the same.” But if he keeps doing it like this, it definitely won’t be the same.
So where does Future’s sudden and abrupt decline leave us? He was rap’s greatest force for all of 2015, and now he’s just one vast void. Who replaces him? Drake, Future’s buddy, is unquestionably the most popular rapper in the world right now — Views has been #1 in America for like two straight months now — but he’s sounding as unmotivated and bored as Future these days. (Just listen to “100it Racks.” Or don’t.) Kanye West can still make great music, but his popular-dominance era is over, and he cares more about tabloid ? than rapping anyway. Chance The Rapper is incredible, but I don’t think he’s a street-level cult hero in the same way that Future was last year. Young Thug isn’t changing the sound of the music. Kendrick Lamar has gone back into his cave. So who’s next? Who replaces Future? Is it J. Cole? Oh ? , it’s J. Cole, isn’t it? fu*k.
http://www.stereogum.com/1885198/the-future-era-is-over/franchises/status-aint-hood/
Comments
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Lol what idiot made this
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Great read...they prayin on his downfall
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I agree...
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That's the nature of the game for u.. Drop a dud and they'll start tearing u down even tho you gave the ppl back to back hits
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By the use of corny words I can tell this was written by a hating ass white man who needs to ?
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iKingGodGivBiz wrote: »
Most hating ass ? I've ever heard -
iKingGodGivBiz wrote: »
Most hating ass ? I've ever heard
Apparently, getting shot is a good thing. Crazy, right? -
Wait, Future is 32? Wtf
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Well considering the music he makes I figured he was in his 20s. Tragic -
20s????
Where your ass been at -
iKingGodGivBiz wrote: »
He wack shoot him again -
Obviously not following him or his music. -
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Future has/had an era?
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iKingGodGivBiz wrote: »
Damn. Whoever made this is messed up -
"Who will replace him?"
anyone that has his production group and can mumble into a mic....if metro starts producing for young thug or desiigner the results would be almost the same. I'd listen to it while working out for the hype and would have a clue what the artist is talking about. -
by "era" we're talking about 1-2 years or so, right?
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his almighty ? -flow gone from his body.
as if...he possessed such a thing -
It's funny seeing this current state of hiphop. ? still be trying to call out old heads, meanwhile the current guys or dudes who ran ? for a year are falling off in favor of the next dude who will run things for the next few months or couple years. It's a funny time right now man.
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You're like me. I wrote him off as wack juice with that Tony Montana ? but he's dungeon fam so I gave him a pass. Turn on the lights was cool, honest was n still is my ? . On a whim I listened to wattba n thought to myself "this ? would be better if future was on this ? solo." Listened to ds2 (under the influence mind u) n i was a believer. Dude isn't a lyrical miracle rapper n his music is repetitive but it works in his favor cos he does it well. Him metro n them 808 niqqaz got a rare musical marriage that happens only once a blue moon. N I like the fact everyone not a fan so maybe he'll have a better run than Wayne n Ross music wise. Fug it I'm just gonna soak it up while it last.
He's low-key soulful. His ? is trap blues if that makes sense. Rich $ex is the closest I've been to liking a r&b song in a while. That's a ? shame.
In short I ? with Hendrix.. -
That ET mixtape is ? horrible