Future - Lay Up

Music 5 years ago

Future - Lay Up

Last weekend, just as Future’s latest mixtape BEASTMODE 2 hit streaming services, the Atlanta iconoclast unleashed a Twitter complaint demanding recognition for his impact on a generation of singing rappers. “Enough of these lil niggas running round like I ain’t make y’all,” he charged. “I gracefully gave u a style to run with like it was your own. Thank me #KINGPLUTO,” the hashtag a reference to his classic 2012 major-label debut.

Future didn’t create the current vogue for Auto-Tune-flavored rap singers – he was preceded by everyone from T-Pain, Lil Wayne, and Gorilla Zoe to Kid Cudi and Kanye West. But he may have shaped the sound more decisively than anyone by deepening it with uniquely soulful feeling and Southern lyrical hyperrealism, helping to elevate it above pop crossover gimmickry into a uniquely post-millennial aesthetic. Yet there might have been less high-minded reasons for the Twitter rant, too. His last project, an ambitious soundtrack for the movie Superfly, stalled at number 25 on Billboard‘s album chart. In spite of Future’s importance, it seems as if he’s fading little, at least for the moment.