The Travis Scott-assisted “First Off” is one of the lone bright spots on the latter half of the album. “Unicorn Purp” sees Future and Young Thug show off the chemistry that pervaded their 2017 collaborative project “Super Slimey.” However, the Gunna feature on the back end of the track sounds like a retread of Young Thug and adds nothing of substance to the song. Few tracks in the latter half are anything more than standard Future songs, with boastful bars about wealth and influence over rattling and powerful production.įuture rarely utilizes features on his LPs, choosing instead to focus on his own style and versatility - or lack thereof - and “The WIZRD” follows this formula, with only three features throughout the twenty tracks. Tracks become less memorable, almost as if Future is trying to pad the track list to reach the one-hour mark. The latter half of the album is where the project begins to slow down. Nevertheless, the beats are seamless and carefully produced to fit the psychedelic yet triumphant mood of the entire project. Yet Future takes advantage of newer producers on this album, notably Memphis’ Tay Keith and Atlanta’s Wheezy.įrequent collaborator Metro Boomin, however, is notably absent from the album - an unfortunate consequence, as his production is some of the most cutting edge in hip-hop today.
Tracks like “Jumpin on a Jet” and the lead single “Crushed Up” see Future rap about his successes with references to diamond-covered chains and 14-passenger jets over slick production, replete with psychedelic hi-hats and other eclectic sounds that cultivate the consuming nature of the LP.įuture has always relied heavily on a small team of producers to formulate his trademark sounds. However, the album establishes itself with the next six tracks, each running less than three minutes, and prepares the listener for a celebration of Future.
The album’s weak point, atypical to its entire first half, is the opening track “Never Stop.” The nearly five-minutelong cut effectively introduces the victory lap nature of the entire project but soon overstays its welcome as Future maintains a monotone delivery that quickly becomes boring. Future instead opts to shift the focus to his successes in the music industry since his selection to the XXL Freshmen list in 2012. This maturation is evident throughout his album “The WIZRD,” which mentions drug abuse and drug dealing, though to a much lesser extent. The latter most notably described the pitfalls of drugs in his 2018 track “KOD.” Cole have all advocated anti-drug stances in the past year. During these interviews, Future revealed he had stopped consuming lean but was too scared to tell anyone because his fans expected him to be doing drugs.įuture is following the trend of modern hip-hop zeitgeist where artists like Lil Pump, Smokepurpp and J. Future lamented the impact on the youth, especially with his glorification of the recreational drug lean, in interviews with Rolling Stone and Genius in 2019. The Atlanta native, however, has matured more in the past two years than the typically raunchy content on his songs suggests. Since the release of those two albums, the usually prolific Future has maintained a relatively low profile, only releasing unconvincing collaborative mixtapes with Young Thug and Juice WRLD and the underperforming mixtape “Beast Mode 2.” However, because this album is the last on his record deal with Epic Records, hope remains for fans and dilettantes for his output in the future. FUTURE | While rap superstar Future stays true to the sound that launched him to notoriety, his most recent album comes across as more stale, failing to achieve the same level of quality as his previous work. The album serves as Future’s first album since his 2017 releases “Future” and “Hndrxx,” which dropped in consecutive weeks, making Future the first artist to top the Billboard 200 with two different albums in back-to-back weeks. While it starts off lyrically strong, the album never quite delivers on its potential because of its repetitiveness. The rapper, who is nominated for two Grammys this February, uses a diverse array of sounds with 808 drums to form the album’s foundation.
This reflective theme is appropriate, as the album fulfills Future’s record deal with Epic Records.
Future’s seventh studio album “Future Hndrxx Presents: The WIZRD” serves as a celebration of everything he has accomplished over the last decade.