Future claimed in a promotional reel that he created ‘The Real Me’ as a response to the pain of not being able to “show people who you really are.” Yet what his tenth album reveals is that the iconic Atlanta artist has been his real self for at least the past ten years.
The lead single of the project, which contains no collaborations and was the only preview, was promising. In ‘Radio’, Future makes clear that the song is not meant for the masses and delivers some genuinely intriguing lines, such as when he says that not being able to mourn “is part of being a king,” or when he debunks one of his biggest myths by swearing that “hoes come for inspiration, it’s not what it seems.”
On the other hand, ‘If I Could’ stands out as the most interesting track on the LP, both for its dreamy beat with eighties vibes and for the content of its lyrics or the artist’s strong performance. Future presents himself as a normal person when talking about his kids (“The little one is trying to follow in my footsteps, but he needs to finish school / I told my kids to be better than me, I told them the truth”) and incredibly vulnerable as he presents himself as someone who cannot express his feelings to his closest circle: “I love my family, it’s hard to tell them how I feel.”
If most of the project had consisted of songs like these, with the classic Future sprinkled across the tracklist, ‘The Real Me’ could have been a great record. The reality is the opposite, leaving the final impression that it is a failed album. It’s not that the Atlanta rapper is coasting on autopilot, because he remains a superb specialist in his craft. This is evident in tracks like ‘Fukk A Interview’, ‘Weight Up’, ‘Trench Coat’ or ‘Tank Top Pluto’. What happens is that it offers absolutely nothing new, neither in themes nor musically.
In fact, when he attempts to delve into styles closer to pop toward the end of the LP, the results are terrible. Not even Pharrell’s imaginative production can lift the obvious hit-attempt that is ‘Alice’, which feels repetitive and heavy from the first listen. Future’s performance also leaves much to be desired, as does the dreary beat on ‘Hollywood’. The experiment seems akin to Drake and PARTYNEXTDOOR’s ‘DIE TRYING’, but with the difference that absolutely no one, not even the most casual listener, will swallow this version of the rapper.
The remainder of the LP oscillates between the more misogynistic Future—‘California Girls’ shares a concept with The Beach Boys’ classic, but without any charm—, the more generic, and the more daring, in the worst sense. The exaggerated falsetto on ‘2018’ is almost criminal, though it at least provides a few laughs. By contrast, the freshness of the ethereal beat in ‘Build A Bitch’ is overshadowed by its cloying theme. If the Future who really exists is like this, give us the one that isn’t real.
