Album Review: The Real Me by Future
Four years after his last solo album, Future promises to be the man behind the Pluto alias. He keeps the promise on a handful of songs that hold his best writing since the 2010s.
Atlanta trap thrives on fictional personas, and no artist has created more of them than the rapper who used to go by Meathead—someone who has spent fifteen years going by such names as Pluto, Future Hendrix, Fire Marshal, and The WIZRD without ever showing anyone who is underneath them. Future hadn’t put out a solo album since 2022 (unless you want to count MIXTAPE PLUTO), during which period he put out two collaborative albums with Metro Boomin and sparked the decade’s biggest rap feud, so he called the album The Real Me, which promised to give his fans the chance to finally see the real him. He lives up to the promise in patches, and the patches feature some of the best lyricism Future has produced since the 2010s. Writing personas comes easily to him.
He spends the entirety of “Fukk a Interview” paying a million to a judge and walking in alligators, roaring, “Can’t sugarcoat this shit, fuck a interview,” after dropping a flag with “I was born in Zone 6, nigga, I tote my own stick.” Further on, he turns the nursery rhyme into a threat on “One Two,” “One, two, Pluto comin’ for you/Three, four, killers knocking at your door,” and keeps up the theme of wealth in quick flashes with “Tank Top Pluto,” “Eight rings on me like Pac, go crazy,” three women he is seeing now all married. At the time of “Konnichiwa,” he reduces the world tour of his conquests to a punchline, “I fucked a African bitch in Japan, that ho said, ‘Konnichiwa,’” to a point where the ad-libs take care of most of the rapping.
On the one hand, “Trench Coat” finds ATL Jacob turning an origin bar into a threat display that is low-end and air. Future fills the gap with a wardrobe and a threat with “Might cause havoc with a KelTec,” and with the chant, “Trench coat, pink coat, mink coat, sheesh.” Similarly, he turns “Money Over Everything” with bass, a minimal loop, and a vow, “Too legit to quit, I gotta keep my hammer.” On “Off the Hinge,” Southside and Wheezy crowd the lane with aggressive 808s and fast hats. In the midst of this, Future pushes harder with “I’m full of dope, wanna know what I’m on, I’m on Molly, I’m on X,” after the plainest come-up line on the song, “I slept in the cold, I managed to load, I really came up from nothin’.” Even within the pimp talk of “Snow in Skyami,” set against a cold melodic backdrop, he opens up to one moment of honesty, “I got these hoes ready to crash out because of all this fame.”
Taken from The WIZRD documentary, André 3000 drops by “No Misery” to say some things. The trap is discredited, he says, and Future carries “a certain pain behind what he’s doin’.” Once Future starts singing, he reveals the pain to be possession. He builds the hook into a claim over a woman he left, “You’ll never fuck her better than I can,” and the second verse into both tender and ugly: “That bad bitch, you lovin’ me, then molested me/Perpetuary, a decade, no misery.” He reaches for scale to win an argument no one else is having, “We made history after history after history,” boasting to someone who is gone.
He gets closer to the real him on “Radio,” where he keeps stumbling over confession mid-freakout. Grief passes in a single line, “I could be grievin’ ‘bout a death, it come with being a king,” and he spends the last part talking himself into humility, “Try not to boast ‘bout it, embrace it and bein’ low-key,” while he writes the market off on the hook, “This not for the radio.” On “If I Could,” Future advises, “Told my sons to be better than me, I told ‘em the truth,” looks upward for support, “I know my grandma is looking down, so I’m keepin’ it G,” and spends the hook on the wish for jurisdiction: “If I could rule this universe, it wouldn’t be sin/I’d free my dawgs out the feds, out the pin.” On “Big Moment,” he remembers who is gone, “Members who was close was the first to turn they back on me,” and gets the self-portrait finished in one line, “Feel like the world abandoned me, but that’s what made a man of me.” He turns the memoir into a mattress and a marble floor: “Went from makin’ pallets on the floor to livin’ immaculate.”
On “Hollywood,” he chants the entire credit for his entire career over to pharmaceuticals, “Opioids made me a popstar,” only to replace them with Molly world and pink pills. He answers himself with the refrain, “I’m crazy, enough to grow,” and seems to take pride in the diagnosis. DJ Spinz drags “2018” back to an earlier Atlanta, and Future meets him there, “Posted in the trap with a rusted .380,” the most grungy and fastest rapping from him in years, down to the junk-drawer detail of “.30 in my coupe, got Balenciaga stuff.” Pharrell builds “Alice” from a different pocket and brighter material, and Future takes after him with playfulness, chasing a woman down a Wonderland hole (“She party on that new shit/That girl losin’ her soul”).
There is less happening on “Feeling I Give,” where he bets a million dollars, “They’ll never be as toxic as me,” and never comes up with a second idea. “Kick” sees him pricing his own high, “Hermès bag, two of each color, gon’ run you fifty bands,” over a hook with a pill kicking in. On “California Girls,” he sorts women by the city, and even there manages the one great line, “I could start a cult the way they follow me,” “Build a Bitch” becomes a build of a partner from a spec sheet, “Whole lotta self-esteem, yeah, whole lotta potential,” and he settles “Eye to Eye” in loyalty talk, “Keep it real with a nigga like me, you know you can roll with me.” He has recorded every one of those songs already under other names. The realest man in demand appears to need a partner.
Dre Moon turns “Cast a Spell” into a hypnotic crawl, while Future uses the opportunity to confess, “You know I need you bad, you know how bad I need you,” as well as prescribing something new for himself, “No more Roxies, I got Oxies in a capsule,” and revealing the harm in all honesty, “Practice what you preach to me, my heart been shattered.” He begs her not to play with him at once when he admits that his head is confused and he needs a partner.
Solid (★★★½☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Radio,” “If I Could,” “Big Moment”