On Future's eponymous album, released a week ago, we received a brash and pretentious star enamored with the finer things. Future's adoration for everything stemming from codeine to Xanax was scattered all over his fifth album. Despite a few moments of painful candor, Future coasted throughout, keeping things business as usual. For his surprise follow-up, HNDRXX -- obviously a more ambitious body of work, Future finally unearths the side of himself we've all been waiting to see. Behind his syrupy murmurings, we find a damaged, devastated man who's been trampled by love.
On the slow-winding, self-pitying "Turn on Me," Future touches on what is still, apparently, a sore spot: the demise of his relationship with Ciara. "I've seen so-called good girls turn on me," he sings on the chorus. After watching Ciara melt their bridges of love, Future's heart turned black. In 2015, Ciara's decision to move on with Russell Wilson raised a furor among those in the Futurehive. Things were further complicated when Wilson began to take on a fatherly role to Baby Future.
The second verse of "Turn on Me" finds Future ruminating on his once-fiery love with Ciara. "Nowadays I deal with lawsuits / you tellin' me that's what it came to / licking your panties and bras, aww / that's how a nigga remember you / after I hit it and splashed in it / you should never ever let a square get it," he raps. Who can forget about the messy $15 million lawsuit Ciara slapped on Future for defamation early last year? Because Future constantly thrashed Ciara for denying him the opportunity to see his son, that resulted in the “Like a Boy” singer to fire back. Fortunately for Future, the case was dropped earlier this year.
Later, Future eviscerates the soul of Russell Wilson in the next couple of lines. "You should never ever ever let a square get it/I'm the one put all the flames on you/I had you tatting my name on you," he rapped. Back in 2015, Future touched on Wilson pushing his son's stroller during his time on The Breakfast Club.
“Of course, I wouldn’t want somebody pushing my son,” he said. That’s the number one rule," he said. "If I was a kid, and my mama had a dude pushing me, I would’ve jumped out the stroller and slapped the shit out of him. You never do that in our community. You don’t ever bring a man around your son. How you know this dude for a few months and you bring him around your kid? Who does that? Nobody does that.”
As for the tattoo, after Ciara and Future parted ways, the R&B songstress removed it in 2014. Is it surprising that Future decided to vengefully charge at his baby mama? On the beginning of HNDRXX, Future quickly sacks the elephant in the room on his intro “My Collection.” “She told me she was an angel / she fucked two rappers and three singers/she got a few athletes on speed dial/I’m tryna get the case dismissed before I see trial,” he raps. Ciara publicly dated 50 Cent and Bow Wow, which refers to the two rappers. In addition, she’s believed to have a pristine image in the public eye. As far as athletes, Ciara dated NBA star Amare Stoudemire back in the day and is currently married to Russell Wilson.
On "Solo", Future delves into the idea of riding off into the sunset on his lonesome. "We can't be too discrete, niggas going to know right now / got my name too big, everybody know right now / I enjoy it outside, been in the low for a while / I'm a solo now, I've been going solo now," he raps on the chorus.
His Rihanna-assisted track "Selfish", allows him to cool off his aggression and get reflective on the record. “Broken lies, ain’t no love without us/it will die, roses turn into dust/We getting’ more popular/Wrong is right, when it comes to us,” he raps. "Selfish" sounds like Future's final conquest at taking a stab at love. Despite having a wounded heart, he still envisions himself being able to have someone that he can call his own.
He continues to turn down the dial of hostility on his outro, “Sorry.” While he doesn’t address Ciara head-on like he did on the aforementioned tracks like “My Collection” and “Turn on Me”, he seeks forgiveness from not only her, but the people he tore down from his murky past. “Yeah, ain't really mean to hurt you / sorry it's gotta be this way / ain't mean to try to desert you/ sorry, tryna be this way / ain't really mean to hurt you,” Future reveals on the chorus. On "Sorry", he continues to rap as if he desires a woman to be his crutch when he pens lines like, "I breathe the air she breathes / it's hard to breathe on my own/it's so not infidelity / make me check every single stone." In addition, he speaks on the downside of fame and how it can affect not only family life, but also the woman you love, as well. "Fame change family, that's the way it is / fame change a hoe, that's the way I give / paid for my mistakes like a drug deal," he scripts.
For Future, HNDRXX wasn’t just for the fans, it was for him. To finally be able to voice his heartaches, his disappointments, and emerge a greater man than yesterday, is the victory he needed after enduring three years of heartbreak.