By the time that October 28th, 2014 rolled around, Future was already a bonafide pop-star. He had released, or been featured on, a good number of charting singles, including “Racks,” “Same Damn Time,” “Turn On the Lights,” “Neva End,” “Karate Chop,” “Honest,” and “Move That Dope.” He was on a Rihanna album, he had some of the biggest names in pop and pop-rap on his 2014 album Honest. He had a string of early mixtapes in Pluto, , Streetz Calling, Dirty Sprite, and Astronaut Status that were hits in his native Atlanta, Georgia, helping to propel him into the mainstream.
He was a household name already. However, after the release of Honest, clearly something wasn’t clicking stylistically. He brought his auto-tuned sung/rap style to the masses, and it has relatively well received, as he was truly doing something different from a lot of people at the time. By all accounts, Honest, which reached number 2 on the Billboard charts, was well received. It featured a wide array of bruising bangers and radio ready pop tunes, with a fair bit of introspection. He was already talking about heavy drug use, street life, and broken hearts. And yet, it wasn’t necessarily true to what he wanted to create. He didn’t take to the pop-star lifestyle. Deep down, he knew that there was a monster just waiting to be released.
That brings us to that wonderful day, October 28th, 2014, when he released his career altering mixtape, Monster. Although his dark, nihilistic, brash and druggy sound would not be perfected until 2016’s DS2, Monster serves as the inception point for the direction that rap as a whole would begin to take, following in the footsteps of the singular character that is Nayvadius Wilburn AKA Future AKA Super Future AKA Future Hendrix AKA Fire Marshal Hendrix AKA King Pluto AKA The Wizard.
My relationship with Future’s music started out rockier than one might expect, given how much of a fan I am of just about everything post 2014 that he’s put out. However, I vividly remember hearing “Turn On the Lights,” in high school and absolutely HATING it. His creaky, auto-tuned voice was being pushed to the edge of even sounding human, and the clean electronic beat did nothing for me. I’ve often though this was just due to my, let’s say, more rap averse music taste at the time, but I still really don’t like that track very much. Honest is where I started to warm up to his sound, generally gravitating towards the heavier bangers, like the aforementioned “Karate Chop” and “Move That Dope.” There are some underrated songs like the eloquently named “Sh!t,” “My Momma” with Wiz Khalifa, “T-Shirt,” “Benz Friendz” with Andre 3000, and “Covered N Money,” which would later be sampled by Vince Staples on his song “Señorita.”
I actually remember a specific time with my buddy Kevin and a few other friends when we were listening to “Move That Dope.” We were arguing over whether Future was saying “whipping and flipping the yam,” or “whipping and fipping the yam.” It was hilarious, and we even played the you’ve video and like half speed to hear it more clearly. For the record, he is supposed to be saying flippin, but it definitely sounds like fippin, but I digress.
Even with these songs, the rest of Honest always felt too polished and I never warmed to a lot of the more gentile, pop-oriented tracks, even though I do have a greater respect for them these days. So when I saw that just a few months later in 2014 that Future released a new free mixtape to Datpiff, I was a little surprised, but also not all that intrigued. There was no harm in checking it out. The cover art drew me in, as it was a much different image than I was used to; one that is a bit darker, maybe less radio friendly. Although that would absolutely prove to be the case, that doesn’t mean I fell in love with the project upon first listen. In fact, I thought it was terrible. Or I should say, I thought that the first few moments of the first track were terrible.
I was in the common room of our quad with my friend Patrick. I remember announcing that Future just dropped a new mixtape, and his reaction was pretty similar to mine; He wasn’t exactly enthused. But I thought, “Fuck it,” and started to play it out of my laptop speakers. We both listened as Future let out a long, Frankenstein monster like croak before yelling, “MONSTER!” Then the track actually began, and we didn’t last longer than a few seconds into the slurred chorus of “Radical.” I declared something along the lines of “holy shit what is this? This is so bad, goddamnit, what the fuck,” and paused the song. We both actually laughed at how bad we thought it was. For the time being, that was the end of that.
I can’t remember exactly when it was, maybe when I was alone in my room, or on the bus before a basketball game, but I yet again said, “fuck it,” and threw the mixtape on again. Again, I’m not sure what it was, but after getting through “Radical,” I could not have been more surprised. In retrospective, I shouldn’t have been all that surprised given the tracks I’ve enjoyed by Future in the past, but this was different. It was darker. It was more nihilistic and nasty. Yet at the same time, it was also more vulnerable and regardless of whether a lot of it was true or not, it felt real. It was unrelenting and intense. It all but shattered the pop-star image that he had cultivated and succeeded with. The monster was loose, and it was exhilarating.
As I mentioned earlier, this long zombie-like croak kicks of the album. Immediately it’s clear that this isn’t just a different style of music; it’s a whole new Future. The instrumental has an oppressive, uneasy quality to it. It’s like you’re in a disgusting haunted house, with all of the dark, negative energy swirling around in the air around you. Future is slurring, sounding like he’s on all of the drugs that he’s rapping about, trying to find the words to describe the massive bender he’s just coming down from, or maybe just beginning. The chorus where Future just repeats “fuck up your attitude, fuck all the gratitude, all this shit radical,” over and over again. It’s oddly hypnotizing. The line “fuck fame, n****, ridin’ round with the semi,” adds to the sentiment that Future was sick of his previous image, and this track acts as the death of that clean, somewhat sanitized version of himself.
This leads into the title track, “Monster,” which continues the same vibe. It’s haunting instrumental, with it’s fuzzy bass and eerie sporadic synth hits complement Future’s bars. Bars about drug use, misogyny, and overall toxic energy just oozes out of Future’s vocal chords. We get a wide array of absurd bars like, “It don’t fuck with my conscious, I serve my auntie that raw,” (he means drugs by the way you nasty bastard), “I’m a young Freddie Krueger, I promote prostitution,” and “I’mma fuck her throat when she get home from church.” Gone is the energy of Honest‘s “I Won,” where he rapped about then wife Ciara as being a trophy he held near and dear to him. Instead, with that relationship falling apart, he’d rather indulge in every last carnal desire he has without a second guess.
“Fuck Up Some Commas” comes next in the tracklist, but honestly, that really rose to prominence later in 2015, is more known for being on DS2, and is kind of the black sheep in terms of style on Monster. So let’s move right along to what is one of my favorite all time Future songs, “Throw Away.”
“Throw Away,” is an early curveball that really shows that this mixtape, and overall change in energy is coming from someone who knows he fucked up something special, that being his relationship with Ciara. The first half is a banger. It’s Future reveling in the life he’s living post breakup, telling himself that “it’s gon’ be okay” over and over again, and likening the girls he’s hooking up with to pistols that get thrown in the bushes after a hit. It’s partially confounding how he claims he won’t be disrespectful, but then explains how he doesn’t answer girls’ texts, just wants “their facial,” and declares that “if we have a conversation, gotta fuck today,” which are all pretty, you know, disrespectful. But it is interesting to see certain lines as things he knows will help him sleep with women, while others act as a sort of inner monologue, since he knows what he’s doing is pretty fucked up.
Speaking of that sort of awareness, the second half of the track is whiplash to the highest degree. He goes from flaunting those one night stands to sounding legitimately heartbroken or forlorn. It’s conflicting, since he’s simultaneously admitting that he sleeps around, but seems to be upset that this lifestyle wasn’t simply given a pass in his relationship. While you may not agree with his morals in the slightest, you can’t argue with the emotion he shows, especially as he gets into a strained singing passage with lines like “Don’t give up on me today/ Hold on to me like a true love/ I told you it was a true love/ I ended up with temptations,” and “Now tell me you don’t want me/ Tell me that the pussy ain’t mines no more/ Tell me you moving on and you don’t love me no more.”
Admittedly, some of those lines look goofy written out, but Future’s performance is what sells it. It may not exactly be an endearing representation of his personality, but it ironically feels much more honest than anything that actually appeared on Honest. He doesn’t seem to be afraid to admit that he is an extremely flawed individual, but that also doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have a heart.
“After That” feels like an Honest type of banger, but the instrumental is darker and more imposing. It’s one of the tracks that serves as a good example that this new sound hasn’t exactly been perfected just yet. It’s by no means bad, as the energy is propulsive and the bass hits hard. It is important to note that we get a very solid verse from Lil Wayne, who is the only feature on the whole tape. His wordplay is sharp, and they do both have a history of showing chemistry on a track like this. It is also telling that this is the only feature, because he does kind of take the track over. The rest of the tracks are solo cuts, and give Future much more space to toy with his new sound, instead of leaning on features that would turn the songs into something different. He is allowing himself to experiment and grow on his own, track by track.
“My Savages,” is one of the early instances where I can see why some people have likened a lot of Future’s more sentimental tracks to a sort of modern trap-blues genre hybrid. Here, he raps at length about loss, love and people close to him, all themes that are have always appeared in the blues genre. He paints a picture of spending a ton of cash, all while he’s paranoid he may need to use his gun today, because he just got the news of someone he knows getting shot. The drugs and extravagant lifestyle are simply ways to escape this pain and paranoia. The strings convey a sort of forlorn energy, as he yearns for everyone he’s lost, all while trying to enjoy what he still has in front of him. His performance picks up steam as the track progresses, with just the right amount reverb on his voice, making it seem like he’s rapping from a dream, or a memory. It’s a nice break from the non-stop hedonism for him to let those close to him know how thankful he is that they stuck by his side.
“2Pac” features some nearly overpowering bass, and another slightly eerie synth line that falls somewhere between luxurious and grimy. It’s another sign of him occupying that space between the pop-centric bangers he was making just earlier that year, and the trap perfection that is DS2. He acknowledges that era of his career, understanding that he went “too pop” and this is all a very concerted effort to return to what he believes to be a much truer version of himself.
“Gangland” is an assault on the senses. It’s loud, brash, off-kilter, bringing the energy back right as the tracklist may have started to drag a little bit. “I’m so sick and tired of being humble/ This money put a lot of demons in me/ That’s why I tatted all these angels on me, ” he raps. There isn’t a catchy chorus here like most of the other tracks, and instead uses the chorus to reaffirm his credibility on the streets of Atlanta. Setting the record straight on where he came from is more important than creating something people can sing along to absolutely takes precedence here. That’s where he started after all, but many of his newer fans at the time just knew him for his radio hits, so he needed to give them a reminder.
“Fetti,” on the other hand does feature a chorus that I recite randomly to this day. “Tell me you came with the fetti, tell me you came with some fetti.” It’s an earworm, and with the preposterously explosive beat, this is the perfect song to listen to in the car or on a good sound system. Really this whole tape is like that, but “Fetti,” stands out. His flow is especially tight here, and I feel like a lot of people don’t really realize how Future can rap his ass off when he sets out to do that. He continues to give vivid descriptions of existing somewhere between stardom and the streets, with lines like “order Ace of Spades by the case/ Tell ’em shoot that n***** in his face/ I keep a pack of wolves but he safe/ I rob the bank, I’m going on a chase.” Future also continues to admit to the flaws in his character by saying, “I’m the one breakin’ my promises/ I started losin’ my conscience.” It’s a track that successfully balances the harder side of his personality, all while sprinkling in the human aspects of his persona as well.
“Hardly,” is another track where the pain of the blues shines through. He “hardly forget[s] anything,” and warbles and slurs on the chorus to the point that he sounds intoxicated; Even when he’s fucked up, he still can’t escape certain feelings. It’s a song of pain and regret, where he chooses to “Wash the molly down with champagne/ Was the Xanny down with syrup,” admitting that he “Hope[s] it take away all this damn pain.” His pain is further evident right at the end of the track:
“I pour my life inside these poems, my whole soul and my spirit/ I’m easily agitated, get intoxicated tryna fight the demons/ Tryna find fight in my wrong, hope my legacy live on.”
The next track continues the nice trend of alternating between loud, hedonistic bangers and the more introspective tracks. We head back into the hypnotic nature of a Future bender with “Wesley Presley.” This is one of his most underrated, effective tracks he has ever created. The slightly unsettling, swirling synth travels back and forth between the speakers, seemingly fighting with the thick, constant bass. This truly is hypnotic production. Future compares himself to Elvis Presley and Wesley snipes, while calling out all sorts of different celebrities in his double entendre’s regarding women and drugs. He’s got a white girl on him like Brad Pitt and Tom Brady, and has a “white girl like Cindy Crawford.” As tracks before, it’s absurd and over the top, but it’s perfectly executed here. The energy is almost anxiety inducing, as it feels like you’re peaking as all of the drugs and alcohol are hitting your system at once. It’s a shock that his delivery is so composed and at ease in such a place of chaos and disorder. This feels like a direct predecessor to tracks on DS2 like “I Serve the Base,” and “Groupies.”
If “Wesley Presley” is the peak of a bender, “Showed Up,” is right when everything starts going wrong. It’s dark and ominous, with Future continuing to go on and on about his codeine use. He let’s us know, “I just downed a whole eighth of codeine,” and you get the feeling that might be an eighth too much. He compares himself to El Chapo in his second verse, and declaring “Fuck the jury, n****, fuck the DA, n****, fuck the judge, n****/ Only Mexicanos that push kilos can judge n****.” The disdain and aggression is at it’s high point, and this track feels like the point when all of the wheels start to fall off. It’s a point of no return for Future. It’s also the only time I can recall “smelling like sardines” being mentioned in a rap some, so that’s definitely something too.
“Mad Luv” sounds downright angelic compared to a lot of the darker, harder songs on the mixtape. It’s bright and energetic, complete with some interesting sounding bells sprinkled throughout the instrumental. It’s like Future waking up the next day, feeling surprisingly good despite all of the shit he got up to, and realizing all of the amazing things he still has in his life. He expresses his love for his day ones, and everyone who’s stayed with him despite his flaws and mistakes. It feels like a nice positive note to end on, allowing him to continue to move forward.
Except, that isn’t the last track on the album. We have one of Future’s all time best tracks in “Codeine Crazy.” It really distills all of the themes of Monster into one winding, expressive 5 minute track. Future knows that despite the perceived positivity of “Mad Luv,” this is the mindset that he’ll always come back to with everything he’s gone through. The pain, loneliness, dependency on drugs and other people will always prevail. It’s this dichotomy between being hurt and happy that he’s no longer in such a publicized relationship with Ciara. Where he’s “celebrating like a championship,” but also slips lines like “drowning in Actavis, suicide,” “remember when I was getting loaded/ Remind myself that I’m still getting loaded,” and “I’m an addict and I can’t even hide it.”
After one braggadocios line, there’s a more sad reality. He was sick of the rumors in the media, but he’s also sick of the loneliness he feels now. He feels better when he’s drugged up, but he knows the negatives that come with such wild drug use. In the end, he does come to a sort of peace, or at least understanding of where he needs to go from here. “I’m taking everything that comes with these millions/ I’m taking everything that comes with my children,” he declares at the end of the song, closing the album out. Despite the wild ride of pain, drugs, sex, violence, and darkness, he’s motivated to do everything he can to come out on top, and in a better place.
That proved to be somewhat prophetic. After Monster, Future went on what is now considered to be a pretty legendary string of releases. He followed this up with Beast Mode and 56 Nights, two more free mixtapes that rivaled most artist’s full length albums in terms of quality. He topped all of that off DS2, where he cemented himself and his sound at the forefront of the rap game. He was already a star, but now he brought his druggy, dark aesthetic to the top of the charts. His fame and status is unquestioned now, especially after his album with Drake, and other various high quality albums and mixtapes. He may have stagnated somewhat recently, but it doesn’t do a thing to shake his influence.
Overall, that success years after Monster‘s release is what makes this project so interesting to me. You see tracks here that would prove as blueprints for songs he would make on later projects, and I guess it makes sense why this tape may not be as well known to people other than die-hard Future fans. Yes, some tracks may feel repetitive, but to me, they are all different enough to serve their purpose. This is an artist looking to do something drastically different with his sound, so it is hard to expect every song it hit perfectly. You can’t always just jump into the pool without dipping your toes in first, even though some tracks here really prove he tried his best to cannonball his way into a new sound. That, however, is why when Future does put together a great chorus, or inflection, or delivery or chooses an especially disgusting beat, it’s exciting as hell. The highlights are stratospherically high, with “Monster,” “Throw Away,” “Fetti,” “Hardly,” “Wesley Presley,” “Showed Up,” and “Codeine Crazy,” standing out the most.
He goes back and forth between two levels of darkness, one being destructive and aggressive, with the other being lonely and painful. Even the brighter moments are always tinted a bit darker, giving you that feeling that the monster is waiting just around the corner. This helped Future establish himself as one of the more interesting personalities in rap, despite what many may think.. Yes it’s a lot of drugs, women and violence. That may be nothing new, but nobody found such an exciting way to package these themes, coupled with the harsh reality, personal turmoil, interesting instrumentation, and ever changing delivery assisted by auto-tune, until Future started to experiment on Monster.
It’s a crime that I waited until this late to mention, but Metro Boomin, TM88 and DJ Esco deserve their props here for giving Future the perfect platform prodution-wise to reach the soaring heights he did here. This is an all-time great mixtape, and the most important one in Future’s entire discography. No, it may not objectively be his best body of work. But without this pivot in style and delivery, we don’t get DS2, What a Time to be Alive with Drake, or any of the subsequent projects he’s made. Not to mention the countless younger artists making music today, like Lil Uzi Vert, Young Thug and the late Juice Wrld all have cited Future as an influence. His reach within the genre is massive and undeniable, and this project is where it all started. Monster is an under-appreciated milestone in rap history, and a project that I will always have a massive amount of love for.
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[…] go check out the first installment of that series, where I covered Future’s genre changing Monster mixtape, as well as my new review of SL’s Different Dude. Much love to everyone, and I hope […]