Future is sending us some signals. The long-reigning Atlanta rap star’s new album is called The Real Me, and he only announced it a few weeks ago. The cover is a striking image of Future, new haircut and all, staring down the camera, wearing no shirt and no jewelry. (I guess he’s got an earring on, but he doesn’t have any chains or anything.) Most strikingly, the album has no features, an interesting choice for one of rap’s most prolific collaborators. So this is clearly going to be Future’s most personal, stripped-bare work, right? Well, no. It mostly sounds like a Future album.
Maybe that’s not fair. I am currently on my first listen to The Real Me, and it’s possible that Future made a lot of intense confessions that just skated past me because he delivered them in his regular Future voice. Probably not, though. Future recorded The Real Me with a team of producers including Atlanta trap regulars like Wheezy, TM88, ATL Jacob, and Southside, so it’s not like he’s making acoustic folk or boom-bap here. The album is long — 22 songs in 58 minutes — and it’s mostly Future in his comfort zone, melodically murmuring fried shit through Auto-Tune. He’s good at that, but you have heard him do it plenty of times.
But if Future isn’t trying to make a huge artistic statement, or even a Travis Scott-type megabudget blockbuster, there are still a few intriguing left turns. Some of the beats lean in a slightly more chaotic, rage-influenced direction, and he does a truly silly squeaky-voice flow on “2018.” “If I Could” draws on ’80s synth-funk. “Hollywood” is basically a Weeknd-style synthpop song about feeling groovy. The Pharrell-produced “Alice,” buried at the very end of the album, is like a DJ Mustard take on early-’90s house music.
On Twitter, Future called it the “album of the century.” I like the confidence, but I can’t say I agree. I’ve already seen plenty of others call it “unlistenable,” and I can’t agree with that, either. To my mind, it’s just another hour of music in a catalog that’s already very full. Hear it for yourself below.
The Real Me is out now on Epic.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source stereogum.com ’
