Review: Future’s Robo-Croon Shines on ‘Superfly’ Soundtrack
Future‘s accompaniment to Director X’s remake of Superfly (which the Atlanta MC co-produced) isn’t as concise a statement on post-millennial criminality as Kendrick Lamar’s Black Panther project was on universal blackness and African identity, and it certainly can’t live up to Curtis Mayfield’s epochal soundtrack to the 1972 original. But this album, which Future studded with guests like Lil Wayne, Miguel, 21 Savage and H.E.R. (with fellow R&B upstart Khalid), has plenty of good moments. Future’s slurry robot croon is so familiar at this point that it’s easy to overlook his ability to kick lyrical game; “Walk on Minks,” where he rhymes to a girlfriend, “Don’t get caught up in your ring finger/We’re gonna spend the cheddar ’til your fingers wrinkle,” is a welcome reminder, while the PartyNextDoor-assisted “No Shame” is a bluesy ode to drug-dealer audacity full of haunting keyboard notes and squalling electric guitar. The final cut, “Nowhere,” continues Future’s unlikely reputation as a lothario who makes enthralling, possibly repentant love songs: “Giving your pussy away girl is gonna fuck up my legacy/Maybe it’s my intuition, could be jealousy,” he raps in a sing-song lilt. “Can’t let you go nowhere.”