May 6, 2016

After reading @BigCountry's excellent Top 10 Rap Albums list and more recently, @Soldier's take on his top 10 Future songs, I found myself revisiting Future's 2014 mixtape/album Monster. Sometime last year I tried my hand at writing a little review of Monster, but never posted it. Figured I would jump back on the Hendrix bandwagon and post it here for SXN80's reading pleasure. Let me know your thoughts!

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I didn’t really understand Future at first. I remember hearing ‘Bugatti’ for the first time in some snobbish club I used to frequent back in the earlier years of the 2010s. Another T-Pain rip-off? In 2013? Really? No one else really seemed to mind though. Plus, I still had the infectious hook rattling in my skull as I unceremoniously threw up in the parking lot later that night. A quick hungover skim-through of Future’s discography the next day didn’t do much to impress me.

But 2 years later, its 2015 and things have changed. The Future hype is real and I decided to finally give him a chance.

By now, everyone knows the Future/Ciara saga. The seemingly perfect Hollywood couple’s relationship came to a tumultuous end when Ciara called off their engagement in 2014. Future’s descent from happy-go-lucky, romantic hook-crooner into full-blown monster-dom followed soon after, culminating in late 2014’s Monster. A few DatPiff moments later and I'm ready to give Monster a listen.

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Radical is the first song that hits the speakers. Holy s---, this is dark. If I close my eyes, I’m cavorting through the streets of a concrete metropolis with my squad of hoodlums and misfits, Styrofoam cups filled to the brim. Its night, neon lights are flashing in all directions, blurring, loud and chaotic. Everything is coated in a thick hazy layer of smog. It’s grimy. Think Mobb Deep circa 1995, but instead of sparking phillies, we’re sipping that muddy. And now it’s the title track. Is this… is this actually darker? Grimier? Metro Boomin’s bass heavy instrumental is thumping through the speakers as Future’s warbled flow compliments the plodding melody. He’s “serving his auntie that raw”, he’s “promoting prostitution”, and he’s vilely and vividly describing how he’s “f---ing her throat when she gets back from church”. Suddenly, I understand the hype. Future really is a monster.

What fascinates me about Monster is the clear dichotomous distinction of the Future Hendrix persona. And the ties that link it all together into this monsterish behemoth that has, over the past 2 years taken the rap game by storm.

On one side of the equation we’ve got the melancholic, Throw Away, where Future laments the loss of his love, then mournfully depicts his deterioration into syrup and sex-infused madness. “It’s gon’ be ok oh, its gon’ be ok,” he cries in his signature auto-tuned garble. But you don’t really believe him. The pain is leaking through the speakers at this point. And it coalesces into a bubbling pool of promethazine and throwaway encounters with promiscuous groupies.

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And if you thought was painful, then nothing will prepare for the heart-wrenching agony of Hardly and Codeine Crazy. Two beautifully dark and sorrowful sounding cuts, the latter of which may be Future’s best song to date. While Hardly features a stunningly somber piano loop over which Future waxes poetic about trying to “fight the demons”, Codeine Crazy is by far the standout track on the project. It almost sounds like he’s choking back tears as he acknowledges his demons, dangling precariously on the edge as he stumbles through the haphazardly grief-stricken and haunting instrumental.

But then, there’s the other side of Future Hendrix, the self-proclaimed ‘savage’. The obvious stand out is the smash-hit/turn-up anthem, f--- Up Some Commas, a ferocious declaration of unadulterated hedonism over thumping bass and an insanely catchy piano loop. Then there are the darker cuts like Gangland and Fetti, where Future takes it back to the streets. “Do you have the heart to k--- a n-----?” he asks.And this time, he really does sound earnest.

Each song on this project flows into the next. The production team of Metro Boomin’, 808 Mafia and co. have crafted the perfect sonic landscape – an overgrown, lush jungle of trap instrumentals complimented with those sensational rattling high hats we’ve all come to love. Future sounds right at home as he carefully divulges the tale from the birth of the beast to outright monster.

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Monster’s cohesiveness plays to the fascinating journey through Future’s mind. We’re right there with him as he delves into his relationship woes, into his syrup and pill addiction. We’re right there with our glasses overflowing with champagne, drowning in a chaotic, steaming amalgam of late night binges and the feverish hangovers that follow. The demons become transposed on our own psyche. And by the time you’re done listening you can’t help but feel a little forlorn.

2015’s DS2 was the crowning achievement; it was the polished gem we all wanted to hear. But Monster is Future at his most unapologetic. It’s raw, its dirty, its grimy, its emotionally draining, it’s a triumphant elegy of heartbreak coated in codeine, clouded with kush smoke. It’s an aptly titled masterpiece and (in my professional opinion), the shining highlight of Future’s career thus far. If you haven’t jumped aboard the hype train just yet, do yourself a favor and start your journey with Monster.


Rating: 9/10

Fun fact: this track was recorded during the Monster sessions. How this never made it onto Monster is beyond me. Glad we've got to hear it though.

 

May 6, 2016

Good s---. Write-up worthy of this classic