Future stepped into the rap game a weirdo, equal parts Atlanta, equal parts something puzzling and unique. A second generation Dungeon Family member with cryptic lyrics and a penchant for lean, his weirdness seemed the modern counterpart to that of his ATLien predecessors. But where Outkast came down to enlighten, Future was blasting off without looking back. He was the Freebandz Astronaut, leaned out in the cockpit with sights set on Pluto, and once he got there, he kept on going.
Today, Future is Atlanta’s preeminent hip-hop artist, and the city has become the most fecund ground for the genre's latest trends. Few could have predicted that this would be his destiny; he arrived in a moment when the region was brimming with musical innovation, when the sheer volume of output meant new artists disappeared within weeks. It was the rejection of that cycle and its associated trends, and the decision to build his own foundation, that led to Future's supremacy.
Sure, like his contemporaries, he is indebted to the influence of regional legends like Gucci Mane, T.I., and Lil Wayne, but it was creative experimentation with DJ Esco, Mike WiLL Made It, Sonny Digital, and, later, Metro Boomin, that reinvented the region's sound. Between 2011 and 2012, this group introduced us to the syrupy, auto-tuned, often melodic, trap sound that has defined the last four years of southern hip-hop. That period also saw Future infiltrate the mainstream, first as a hook-maker and then as a songwriter. And, coupled with a slew of features and two pioneering albums, Pluto and Honest, he helped close the R&B and hip-hop divide. Sliding between those two modes as deftly as Drake, he showed that using auto-tune doesn’t dilute the hard truths of street life and drug addiction. In fact, the technology served as a palette to recast those truths with new color and meaning.
Much has been said about the litany of personal issues that came next. We’ve heard every detail of the Ciara implosion, the impact on his music, Esco’s time in prison, and Future’s resolve to bounce back. Without re-engaging that overwrought narrative, it’s important to acknowledge that all of Future’s music from then up to this point falls into the same creative period. From Monster to HNDRXX, we find him revisiting heartbreak, guilt, addiction, and the potential of forgiveness. Future has gone from vanguard to the established voice of his city. He’s become a superstar. Right now he’s finishing up a world tour. But the narrative at the core of all this has been stretched out as far as it can go. We can’t keep hearing about depression and addiction, at least not in the same modes he’s been using (even if he is setting Billboard records doing it).
Appropriately, the final track on his most recent album, HNDRXX, was titled “Sorry”. That might be Future at last closing out his chapter with Ciara, and everything that followed. Or it could just be a brief pause before he plunges back into the darkness. Knowing Future’s work ethic, we’ll have some answers (and a few albums) as soon as he gets off tour.
While we wait, we have compiled a list of Future’s top songs. He’s amassed an enormous catalogue, so we raised the bar to thirty-five songs instead of the usual twenty-five we normally give artists.
Pajamas
Many young rappers (and bad, established ones) come stumbling into their first tracks, their bars propelled by elaborate stuntin’ and inflated self-confidence. In this early mixtape cut, Future flips that trope on its head by pushing it to absurd limits. He casually strolls up to steal your girl, hit licks, and chug gallons of lean— all accomplished in nothing more than his pajamas. It’s the kind of earnest weirdness that makes you believe Future can’t be making any of this stuff up.
Wicked
When Future’s celebrity at last caught up to his hip-hop standing, he was quickly cast as a villain. “Wicked” is him giving people everything they need to make that judgement easier. It’s not a narrative or a true response to those perceptions, rather, it’s a collage of images and depravities that people tell themselves only a wicked former drug dealer could conjure.
Draco
In case you are wondering if Future had taken a rest from the groupies and fifty-six broads of albums past, the answer is a resounding no. He’s back on a bigger budget, leaned out and eager to steal anyone’s girl (and then kick her out when he’s lost interest).
Easter Pink
Among Future’s dozens of tributes to cough syrup, "Easter Pink" is reserved a special place. Almost every bar has lean at its center, and those that don’t just seem like filler. It’s a song so devoted to lean that you can practically hear the stuff leak out of Future’s mouth. The notoriously incoherent rapper takes it to another level, sounding numb-mouthed and sedated as he sinks into the sizzurp.
Jumpman
“Jumpman” is a breathtaking sprint, a rapid-fire distillation of Drake, Future, and Metro Boomin packed into three minutes and twenty-six seconds. If you somehow missed out on Future’s early summer tour-de-force, this was your chance to catch up, the song your friend was blasting at a party ‘cause it’s that new Drizzy Drake. For those who decided to give the guy talking about Adderall and codeine a chance, you learned that he gets so much better than this. But if you couldn’t get past “chicken wings and fries,” well… we’ll see you when “Mask Off” comes out.
Blow a Bag
This isn’t just another song celebrating Future’s lavish lifestyle. Actually, the title is kind of a misnomer given how little time is devoted to blowing money. It’s more of a long shoutout to his struggle, everyone who helped him through it, and all the homies that were on their own come-up. If “Blowing a Bag” was the goal, this song tells you everything it took it get there.
Peacoat
Beast Mode was a rare moment of hip-hop production. You don’t see big-name projects handled entirely by one producer anymore; though, when it’s Zaytoven there’s never a dull moment. Stacking a scaffold of piano notes and long, misty synths, he transports us to some basement smoke lounge where our entertainment for the night is an irreverent pianist named Future. “Peacoat” is a reminder of how hilarious, inscrutable, and just plain weird Future’s lyrics can be.
Tony Montana
Future’s first big hit has him playing the part of Tony Montana, rap’s biggest fictional inspiration. He rides in, beating his chest over a menacing beat, and interpolating his own life into the film. Despite an uninspired, arguably annoying hook, this remains an essential Future cut.
Kno the Meaning
Shortly before returning from their European concert tour, DJ Esco was pumping Future up for a post-Honest comeback— Monster was only a start for them. But their plan was briefly derailed by Esco’s detainment in Dubai on drug charges. This is less a rap song and more an essential piece of history for anyone who considers themselves a Future fan.
Low Life
You can’t tell Future’s story without acknowledging his place in the world of pop music. On “I Serve the Base” he proclaims, “Tryna’ make a pop star and they made a monster,” but no matter how much of a monster he has become, we still got a pop star. Future’s career is marked by numerous collaborations with pop musicians, and predictably mediocre songs. The impressive part is when he deftly steps around their game, as if looking at Rihanna or The Weeknd with a smirk on his face because he got it both ways— he nailed his hooks and verse, and he knows the radio station’s gotta play that new Weeknd joint... even if it’s got Future joking about his baby momma and his side bitch kissing.
Karate Chop (Lil Wayne Remix)
Future’s experimentation with voice go beyond auto-tune and singing. In “Karate Chop,” he hones his rapping into a weapon so sharp and rhythmic it competes with the beat, something he would repeat on "Sh!t". This remix also swaps out Casino for a superior, auto-tuned Wayne verse.
Jordan Diddy
Sonny Digital’s production is really good at bringing the flashy winner out of Future. From "Tony Montana" to "Jordan Diddy," he has plenty of personal heroes and personas to channel on this beat. It is impressive, then, that his celebration and his imitations of them never come across as insincere or corny, even though Astronaut Status didn’t see Future anywhere near Jordan’s wealth or Diddy’s industry clout. Maybe because he spends as much time reppin’ his own people, Freebandz and Atlanta, you’re actually left rooting for his comeup.
Same Damn Time
“Samn Damn Time” rolls in and then elevates you like it was designed for a comeback montage, never mind that the lyrics pile up into a sloppy list of Future’s latest flashy purchases and drugged-out accomplishments. This is a victory lap for him, one that you are invited to partake in.
Sh!t
The hip-hop world demands authenticity. Whether it’s Jeezy banging or Chance’s religious conviction, listeners want something sincere and real— and so does Future. In “Sh!t,” he and Mike WiLL Made It have their chemistry down to a tee as Future tears apart all the pretenders talking about guns and paychecks. After this song dropped, everyone was rushing to remix it and prove they weren’t on the wrong end of that message.
Where Ya At
For four years, Future toiled at the edge of fame. Critics loved calling him, at best, underrated and, at worst, a noteworthy regional influence. And now that he’s made it, he hasn’t forgotten. “Where Ya At” reminds us that his struggle started way back, before the music, when he was cooking up dope and living day-to-day. While he spends the song looking back, it feels like more than that, like a promise to make it even bigger now that he’s here.
Stick Talk
“Stick Talk” is Future revisiting one of his favorite subjects. He’s always been devoted to his hood and the characters that populated his rough upbringing, but unlike the loving bro-sesh of “My Savages,” this is a night out you might want to skip. This song also has Future delivering one of the most memorable, if misogynistic, lines of his career.
Real Sisters
On “Real Sisters” Zaytoven steps back from the piano, giving Future space to let out a ruthless battle cry. The penultimate song on Beast Mode bangs too hard for it to be the end. And looking back, we can see that this wasn’t Future closing out, it was him picking up momentum.
Thought It Was a Drought
When Future’s comeback led him into DS2, it was only appropriate to crown the album’s first track with thirty seconds of him slurping lean. It’s a quick nod to the drug associated with his first big mixtape, a drug he controversially helped popularize. But the drug-use that follows isn’t all celebratory; he drinks lean to feel numb and forget, something he acknowledges. And he’s fine with that, because this album isn’t about being better, it’s about resigning to your own darkness.
Perkys Calling
In the grips of addiction, everything you thought you wanted slips through your fingers. Each day ends with the same decisions, the ones you should have known were inevitable. “Perkys Calling” has Future slumping into painful memories and what ifs, and in between is a mash of bragging and materialism that even he doesn’t seem convinced will actually bring him solace. Sure, he’s got a G5 and Balmains, but when all you can hear is scattered piano notes and the “xannies calling,” you wonder how long those objects can hold his interest.
Birds Take a Bath
With a half-sung hook and terse observations of a trap house, Future takes us back to his earliest days as a drug dealer. Despite a catchy melody and celebrations of all the money he’s earning, it feels dark and anxious— there’s nothing fun-sounding about the claustrophobic descriptions of cooking dope in the kitchen and hiding bricks in your shower.
Mask Off
From a distance, it’s hard to conceive of "Mask Off" becoming Future’s biggest hit. The hook is cryptic and scattered, and a bizarre flute melody drifts through the air. Listen once though, and all that activity begins to burrow into your head, until, one day you find yourself rapping along to every lyric. This is Future’s gift— to arrange his weirdness and the scattered threads of his bleak world into something others can’t look away from.
I Be U
There is an interview where Future says that, at the end of the day, he’s a writer. He doesn’t say rapper, or singer, or performer (all of which he does pretty damn well), he says writer. And he’s not wrong— “I Be U” is poetry set to music. Its beauty lies in Future’s plainspoken depiction of brief, intimate moments, moments that contain all the love you can never quite approximate in words or art when you come at it directly: “I’m in it, you in it; no stopping/ I’m quiet, you quiet/ We sit here, we looking in silence.” But it doesn’t end there, the experiences build through the song into an even bigger event. Future keeps exchanging these “I”, “You” moments until the whole thing inevitably collapses on itself. Until there isn’t any space between him and the experience of her, and all that is left is “I Be U.”
T-Shirt
To call this one of Honest’s bangers wouldn’t be entirely right. Sure, that beat kills, but Future’s voice is on a whole other game. He effortlessly slides between precise rapping and exasperated shrieks, and that’s just in the verses. Listen closely, and you hear singing and ad-libs rendered as melodic undertones in one of Future’s coolest textural experiments to date.
I Serve the Base
This is Future rising from the dead. Back to the drugs, back to the meaningless sex, he emerges from an ugly, distorted sonic pit. “I Serve the Base” resembles no other hip-hop song; in fact, at times it seems less like rapping and more like a series of dead-eyed proclamations: “I gave up on my conscience gotta live with it,” “Come and fuck with me baby, I’m a franchise.” It’s him eschewing all labels and ideology for a world where all that matters is the money he can touch and the pills he can pop.
Good Morning
Future’s rise across the charts has been quietly paralleled by an even faster rise behind the scenes of the music industry. Caught for a time in a labyrinth of rumors alongside Beyoncé’s “Drunk in Love,” it was revealed that “Good Morning” served as a reference track to Bey’s single. Love has always been the catalyst for Future’s highest peaks (and his lowest points). And while he can lend Beyoncé a melody, he can’t lend that unique, auto-tuned expression of love that he’s known for. Only Future could deliver the line “I’m so horny, I’m so horny” as a genuine, romantic overture without it seeming corny.
Fuck Up Some Commas
“Fuck Up Some Commas” is pure joy, a total immersion in mania and self adulation. It’s a song that hurtles into you with no mercy, where Southside, DJ Spinz, and Future relentlessly pursue some divinely-inspired ideal of trap (and materialistic) maximalism. The result is a tireless anthem for winners, posers, and douchebags who can’t tell the difference.
56 Nights
When the hook of “56 Nights” plummets in behind the bass, you’re prepared for some big, Future-style epic, or at least a sleazy travelogue. What were he and Esco up to for 56 nights? What exactly happened across Europe with those 56 broads? But he doesn’t even come close to addressing the details. Rather than serving as the subject, these events inform the the song’s emotional core. Future isn’t going to talk about Esco’s 56 nights in an Emirati jail cell— that was hellish, that was “crazy”— instead he lets the song sink into excess and addiction. He almost lost Esco, and in that dark moment, surrounded by the material wealth that their work had brought him, he saw just how precarious their life is. “56 Nights” is simultaneously bursting with exuberance and weighed down by uncertainty. There are diamonds around his neck, but he’s fucked up on lean; the cash is coming in, but it’s getting turned over to buy xanax. You begin to wonder how many more nights Future can keep this run going for.
Move That Dope
In 1995, Andre 3000 lurched up the front stage steps at the Source Awards after Outkast was announced Best New Rap Group. Confronting an audience of New Yorkers whose attitude lay somewhere between indifference and derision, he announced, “The South got something to say.” In this song, Future suggests an addendum to Andre’s six prophetic words: “And we will say it louder than any of you.” Sampling Salt-N-Pepa’s platinum hit, “Push It,” Future takes the New York group’s most recognizable song, introduces it to Mike WiLL Made It, and relentlessly ascends it. Pair this with a laid-back Pusha T feature, and verse by Pharrell that leaves the smooth, pop-culture polymath looking like the coldest of the three (and he didn’t even have to sell dope). Regionalism be damned— Future has something to say.
News Or Somthn
Across the landscape of Future’s discography, there are important junctions marked by profound reflection (Think “You Deserve It”, “My Savages”). Somewhere between the three-mixtape blitzkrieg that ended with 56 Nights, and DS2, Future released a song that had him reflecting on just about everything. Fans have long wondered why this single never ended up on a larger project. The sprawling hook, the lyrical virtuosity— it’s easy to imagine at the center of a project like DS2, yet something about this cut is too vast for that, or any album for that matter. Nard & B have a talent for producing songs like this, ones that invite Future to rap as though he’s the only one who will ever hear it. In “News or Somethn," he zooms through his past, expectations for the future, and a precipice he feels himself nearing in the present. There are no demons, no heartbreak or guilt, but this song is among Future’s most immensely personal, one that belongs solely to him.
Dirty Sprite
This whole song has Future’s voice floating above and away from the production, as though he might slip into overdose at any moment. At times just a whisper, his rapping lulls you into that spiral with him. And despite the ominous piano notes, despite sudden frightening voice modulations, “Dirty Sprite” is the moment his earliest fans decided to step into Future’s world and see how far this trip could go.
Throw Away
The second part of this song transports us into one of Future’s most vulnerable moments. Now, don’t be mistaken, after looking into his psyche, you don’t walk away with a deeper understanding of him, or witness a moment of self-awareness you can learn from. There are no epiphanies here. What you see is exactly You, what you’re capable of. It’s a jumble of confusion and uncertainty. He is angry and ashamed and hurt; at the same time, he finds ways to cast blame and guilt onto the woman whose heart he broke. Because she broke his too. No, her crimes weren’t as bad, but even if they were, to say this song is about moral gray areas would give it false complexity. It’s just about the pain of knowing you fucked up.
Trap Niggas
Future doesn’t really talk about conscious stuff, and neither is he about conscience stuff (he gave up on that around the time of DS2). So even in his dealings with the divine, it’s on his terms. When Future say’s God is blessing the trap, it isn’t a prayer, it’s a statement of fact. Future himself decided to ennoble the actions of drug dealers and criminals; he didn’t stand around and wait for that judgement. For him, moral good arises in the hustle, the only path to righteousness that he recognizes.
Turn On The Lights
Even as the colorful, arpeggiated production on Pluto suggested a shift toward pop, much of Future’s lyricism affirmed his commitment to street bangers. So imagine the surprise when you’re listening and bobbing your head, and suddenly the track jumps to “Turn on the Lights.” It’s a love song with emotive power lying in Future’s full throttle exaltation of not a love, but just the possibility of love. It’s one thing to dedicate a piece to his latest celebrity girl, and a whole other to basically shout out, “I’m looking for someone because I am a human who needs my person!” You can’t walk away from the latter and pretend like you were just simping or trying to get laid. This track resonated with people, becoming Future’s biggest hit and leading him into the role of auto tune singer-rapper-romantic that we didn’t even know hip-hop needed.
March Madness
“March Madness” is momentous. It’s a song that feels like an event. That’s a damn impressive accomplishment for a cut with no thematic center or narrative. Not that we should be surprised at this point. This is Future’s gift. He’s a collector of moments— drugged-out moments, guilty moments, moments of excess— which he then arranges into something that feels cohesive and inevitable. Suddenly all those moments and hopes and intentions aren’t zooming past in a blur, they become a grand movement that you want to be at the center of.
Codeine Crazy
Future’s lyricism and gift for introspection reached a peak in “Codeine Crazy.” No where else is he this transparent and honest. No where else could he say, “I’m putting my heart and my soul in this shit,” and truly mean it. Declaring himself a suicidal drug addict as simply as he declares his love of fine jewelry, Future trods forward, resigned to self destruction. The tragedy isn’t in the sordid and depressing activities that follow, it’s in how compulsively he circles back. “Codeine Crazy” is him revisiting his trauma and heartbreak with empty persistence, toiling over the shit he already has answers to— because he has to, because sometimes a revelation doesn’t mean anything has changed.