Jillian Cherry
Staff Writer
In his new album, “The WIZRD,” Future combines rap with poetry to show some of his life stories and struggles through his music.
Future is incredibly transparent in this album, talking about drugs and love, and everything in between. He mentions his abuse of a drug called lean, and talks about losing people.
Future is a rap artist who has worked with Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift, Drake, Kanye West, Young Thug and many more. He releases a couple of albums a year, and barely two weeks into 2019 has released one already. He began making music in 2010, and has been increasingly popular since then. He also helped make the soundtrack for the award-winning Marvel movie Black Panther.
Produced by Mass Appeal, “The Wizrd” was released on January 19th, 2019. The album features Travis Scott, Young Thug and Gunna in its 20 tracks.
In the first track, “Never Stop,” Future immediately delves into the deeper topics with the lyrics, “Tryna shake the devil, on promethazine.” Promethazine is an antihistamine that, while it does serve a medical use, is infamous for being taken illegally, combined with codeine and sugary concoctions, called lean. On one hand, it’s enjoyable to see the depth of the rapper, but on the other hand, it influences drug use and overly complicates the song.
While the lyrics are very relevant to some, others may not find the same appeal in the drug references. Unfortunately, underlying themes of drugs detract from the album as a whole.
A lot of this rapper’s music is based off of drug abuse, but Future has actually quit taking so many drugs. In “Stick to the Models,” Future says, “I done put up the bottle,” implying that he quit drinking lean. It takes away from the album to hear him rapping about a drug that is so bad for you, and that he doesn’t take anymore. It seems that he’s only doing it for commercial purposes, and it makes the song worse.
The outro for “Never Stop,” is beautiful. It echoes in a very solemn way and features lyrics like “Tears in my eyes, I can’t forget where I came from / I lost a lot but it’s alright,” which really resonate with the listener. The lyrics are beautiful and will be echoing in someone’s head even after listening to the song.
The second song, nowhere near as good as the first, “Jumpin on a Jet,” is very repetitive in the chorus and is mainly Future bragging about his wealth, women, and even drug usage. It’s formed from the same mold that all of the other songs are from, and sounds identical. It’s boring after a while, and the lyrics are poor.
The third song, “Rocket Ship,” is entirely about drug usage, which does not send a good message to young listeners. This song seems crude and impolite, and isn’t enjoyable to listen to if listeners don’t understand the drug culture.
Unfortunately, in a lot of his songs, Future features a very misogynistic and sexist view towards the women that he’s had relations with. It makes otherwise enjoyable songs difficult to listen to.
While there are some incredibly meaningful lyrics, the majority of the album consists of Future bragging about women, money, jewelry, and drugs. It sounds like every other rap album and artist, and is overall not worth the $10.99 it costs on iTunes.
Leave a Reply