Album Review: Future – Honest
3 min read
American rapper Future adapted his stage name after The Dungeon Family, a hip hop/RnB/soul collective, referred to him as ‘The Future’. The past has shown the hip hop star has potential in his element with the success of his debut album Pluto, and presently he has released his second album Honest which may potentially pave the way for his future. From rappers, we expect huge beats, mint production and colossal collaborations with other stars in the genre; Honest gives Future a shot to show us some of that.
It is all bass and catchy hook with Look Ahead, whereas T-Shirt is almost other worldly to begin with until the beat kicks in. Move That Doh features chart dominator Pharrell, the chorus is exhausting and at this point it doesn’t seem that Future can find anything new to rhyme. The repetitiveness continues in My Momma with some help from Wiz Khalifa, then Future rolls off all the ways he is being Honest in the title track with some auto tuned assistance. I Won started off promising, it was almost a serenade to that perfect woman in your life, until it escalates into a song about desribing the perfect ‘trophy wife’; Yeezus himself may as well have stayed at home rather than contribute his twenty seconds of vocals to the track.
I Be U is one of the more laid back tracks on the album, the beat may be big but Future takes it easy on the rhymes, it is actually refreshing. It’s back to rambling with Covered N Money, Special taps into an RnB element that lifts the album a bit and Benz Friendz (Whatchutola) combines fabricated terms and repetitive lines in unity. Blood Sweat Tears is more of the deeper and honest side to Future that we needed to hear; Side Effects is short, sweet and possibly the most listenable song on the album. I’ll Be Yours is actually sweet, How Can I Not is a bit tiring, Shhh… consists of a lot of yelling and finally Karate Chop must have been written with full stops and/or commas in between each word; it’s not the most enticing track to listen to.
From a hip hop perspective, the production and delivery of Honest would be up to scratch; Future fans will love it, as will general fans of the genre. So far the album has been received generally positive, especially by reviewers who specialise in the hip hop genre; that it not to say Honest will be enjoyable by music fans around the world alike. There will be people who would classify much of the content as offensive, degrading even, which changes listenability drastically. There are some deep moments, however, that gives you the glimpse into the personal life of Future; we are introduced to some of his and his friends’ struggles, there is just something universal about relating to each other’s problems. If you are a fan of hip hop, Honest is for you.
