Also known as Super Future, Fire Marshall Future and The Wizard, Future looks to reestablish himself as one of the hottest rappers in the game with his late January release, “Future Hndrxx Presents: THE WIZRD.” With the release of his seventh album, Future finds himself in a weird position in the hip-hop genre.

Future is already an established legend, based on how he pioneered the hip-hop sounds of today. But at times, Future can find himself on the outside looking in on conversations about the hottest rappers of 2018.

It’s not like he goes away to produce new music like Kendrick Lamar and J.Cole, who routinely drop every two years. In fact, Future has kept up with many of the fresh-faced rappers in the game when releasing new music.

Rappers such as Lil Baby and Youngboy Never Broke Again, alongside Future, come to mind as artists who constantly flood the marketplace with new music.

With Lil Baby releasing a collection of four projects in one calendar year, dropping “Too Hard” in December 2017, “Harder Than Ever” in May 2018, “Drip Harder” with fellow artist Gunna in October 2018 and finally, “Street Gossip” in November 2018. Youngboy Never Broke Again, who released six projects in 2018 alone, started with “Until Death Call My Name” in April.

Future released “Beast Mode 2” in July 2018, followed by his joint project with trending artist Juice WRLD, titled “WRLD on Drugs” in October 2018 and finally this album “THE WIZRD” in January 2019.

When talking about Future, it’s important to note the impressive amount of features he has produced as well, most notably appearing on every song of DJ Esco’s April 2018 project, “Kolorblind.” In my eyes, “Kolorblind” also counts as a Future project, simply because of his presence on every song.

Amy Nakamura | Digital Design Editor

With four drops in 2018, Future is definitely keeping up with the younger rappers, despite them receiving more buzz within the hip-hop community. With Future being a legend, this leads us to look elsewhere for reasons he still finds himself on the outside looking in.

When reviewing Future’s new album, one thing I noted is the similar sound most tracks have not only on this album, but on albums over the course of his career. “THE WIZRD” sounds like it should have been named “Dirty Sprite 4” based on the similarities in sound between 2015’s legendary “DS2” and “Future” – or “DS3” – dropped in 2017. This has been a gripe fans have had with Future for a while.

Looking back on “Beast Mode 2,” the only two songs that have a home on my playlists are “Some More” and “Hate the Real Me” because of the sonic differences in them compared to the rest of the project.

This brings up a new question: Is it possible to release too much music? The answer is yes.

When I look back at “DS2” and call it legendary, it’s not simply because of the music on the album. The vibe that the music contributed to that summer, as well as how the music set the tone for future music — no pun intended — to come.

While the three albums (“DS2,” “Future” and “THE WIZRD”) have the same quality of music, Future’s two more recent albums have become the average, especially when the length of each project hovers around 20 songs.

This leaves us with the important lesson that too much exposure can, and often does, lead to the extraordinary becoming average.

Published on January 28, 2019 at 11:37 pm