\n<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen an artist has made 13 albums and nearly two dozen mixtapes in 15 years, does that person have anything new left to say? It\u2019s a question that hangs over Nayvadius \u201cFuture<\/a>\u201d Cash\u2019s latest album, The Real Me<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tMost of Future\u2019s peers in the post-Lil Wayne digital trap era of the early 2010s, from fellow Atlanta stars Young Thug and 2 Chainz to Southern boldfaced names like Kodak Black and Kevin Gates, have faded back into the regional-rap morass. Meanwhile, Future continues to successfully mine his formula on the Billboard <\/em>charts. It was his 2024 collaboration with Metro Boomin and Kendrick Lamar, the Number One hit \u201cLike That,\u201d that ignited Lamar\u2019s historic battle with the king of streaming, Canadian superstar Drake. This year, Future and Drake \u2013 whose history together ranges from the self-satisfied 2015 mixtape What a Time to Be Alive<\/a> <\/em>to \u201cWait for U,\u201d a moodily evocative 2022 chart-topper with Nigerian singer Tems \u2013 settled their differences on \u201cRan to Atlanta,\u201d a cut from Drake\u2019s blockbuster Iceman <\/em>that peaked on number 2 on the Billboard <\/em>Hot 100.<\/p>\n \n\tYet Future can\u2019t avoid being symptomatic of a mainstream rap industry that feels artistically exhausted, too uninspired to imagine new vistas beyond the old \u201cbitches\u201d\/drugs\/wealth dichotomy, and desperate for crossover gimmicks to spark waning audience interest. The 42-year-old doesn\u2019t earn the kind of \u201cPeter Pan syndrome\u201d accusations<\/a> that torment the 39-year-old Drake. He doesn\u2019t publicize his personal travails on social media and has created distance between himself and a famed character that seems perpetually stuck in youthful debauchery. Thankfully, he doesn\u2019t use The Real Me<\/em> to force a country-pop duet onto us. (However, he deploys a sample of Glen Campbell\u2019s \u201cThe Bottom Line\u201d for one of the album\u2019s best tracks, \u201cWeight Up.\u201d) But there are other tropes that will ring familiar, like the weepy guitar strings that saddle \u201cCalifornia Girls\u201d as Future harmonizes \u201cSo many bitches all around the world\u201d in a delighted voice and his utter disregard for political correctness when he claims, \u201call my hoes gay\u201d on \u201cMoney Over Everything,\u201d as if every woman needs a good dicking down, regardless of her sexual orientation. They don\u2019t call him the \u201ctoxic king\u201d for nothing.<\/p>\n