FUTURE
the high priest of the revolution
Introduction
I love contradiction. I love consuming art that is contradiction. Where the depth lives beneath the surface and you have to work for it (if you want to).
Because this is the art that is closest to the truth. Nothing is wholly good, nothing is wholly bad. And nothing is simple.
This is especially true for music.
I cannot stand music that has the thinking spelled out for you.
I cannot listen to J Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Killer Mike, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell etc.
I literally cannot. If I happen to like a song of theirs, it is entirely because I ignore the lyrics and only appreciate the sonic experience.
I respect these individuals and their artistry. They’re obviously talented, intelligent and spiritually charged in a positive way. They ought to be admired for what they stand for, what they fight for and how they do so—with commitment to technique and craftsmanship. Their commercial success also indicates they have no problem finding a loyal audience.
But they perform their thoughtfulness. They foreground intellect as part of their aesthetic.
And when I listen to music, I want to be swept away in the id. The evil. The shallow. The hedonistic. The pleasure. I need to feel it first, not understand it. It needs to activate my aggression, or eroticism, or ambition. Not my empathy, not my self awareness, not my literary sensibility.
I want to be possessed, not impressed. I want to be seduced, not lectured. I don’t want metaphors. I want motion. I want ego, I want mania, I want lust, hunger, delusion, pride. I want violence.
If I wanted to have the cerebral shoved into my head, I’d read a book. I eat books for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When my headphones go in, I want a break from the active thinking.
And guess what? I believe it’s more impressive to make deep art with accessible language, than to flaunt your high level vocabulary.
It is why the Sopranos is my favorite TV show. On the surface its middle school vocabulary is employed to build a dark, disgusting world—mobsters, murder, strippers, money, cheating, narcissism. It’s grotesque, it’s hilarious, it’s everyday.
Yet it’s Shakespearean. In communicating to us plainly, it ends up teaching us more about power, guilt and self destruction than any show has. It is vulgar and transcendent.
It can be appreciated as pure entertainment. By the so called “tits and hits” crowd who have no opinion beyond Tony Soprano being a badass.
Understanding is often the slowest way to know something.
I want intellect collapsed into instinct.
The Portrait of The Writer as a Young Man
It is this reason why Future is one of my favorite music artists.
I have been listening to Future since Streetz Callin. I remember my best friend and I getting in trouble for blasting SAME DAMN TIME on his bluetooth speaker in the hall before first period.
I had no idea what I was parroting. I would scream TONY MONTANA without a second thought.
I would croon that I’M DIRTY SPRITE FOREVER before I even tasted alcohol, let alone lean.
I felt like a kingpin running my high school cheating ring, with MAGIC playing.
CALL UP MY ACCOUNTANT HE GONE MAKE IT DO MAGIC
WAY I SMOKE THE BLUNTS UP I BURN EM UP LIKE NEWPORTS
ALL THIS DAMN CASH MAKE YOUR BITCH WANNA RETIRE
TWO BAD BITCHES WANNA FUCK ME, THE GREATEST
I suppose that was it.
Sure, I was 12 years old. Even if I hadn’t even done any drugs, even though my bank account was a teen one my dad controlled, even though I hadn’t made it to the second base—I felt a kinship with the energy being expressed.
It was winning. It was king shit. It was anti-establishment. It was graduation without following the prescribed curriculum. It was all the darkest parts of the young me, the pre-integration me.
I tell you this so you understand how and why I analyze media the way I do.
When I consume “shallow” art, I can appreciate it on both the layers.
For the surface, the vanity, the sex, the speed, the blood. I let it wash over me, unfiltered. I work out to it, I smoke to it, I fuck to it, I drink to it, I party to it, I drive fast to it. Without second thought.
But underneath, I study it and love it even more. I appreciate how it reflects power, desire, delusion back at us. I can easily psychoanalyze it because I spent a great deal of time psychoanalyzing myself.
I find the dual consciousness because I am the dual consciousness.
I can nod my head to it, late at night, eyes low and red and I can wake up early and write an essay to it and explain it to my grandma.
I see the base and the brilliance.
Like any great work, the philosophy is hidden inside the pleasure.
Back 2 (The) Future
And so last week, I was listening to my favorite Future feature of all time. Happy on Kanye’s Donda 2.
My favorite line came up and I shouted along at the top of my lungs as I jumped down from my final pull up.
BOUGHT A FOREIGN, COULD BARELY PRONOUNCE
I let the line ring in my ears. As I leaned against the swing set I was using as a calisthenics station, I wondered why I loved that line so much.
I went home, jotted down a stream of consciousness. Recorded my thoughts and pressed post.
And I received an enthusiastic response. It really warmed my heart to see how many other people felt seen by my analysis. They were excited that someone else had seen the depth that many had written off.
And as always, the most fun part of social media is the comments.
People expanding on my thoughts with their own perspectives, their own evidence, their own anecdotes. I’m in awe of the shared enthusiasm. I’m obsessed with learning and to learn together with all of you passionate people is the greatest gift.
I haven’t fully formed my thoughts about this lane of cultural criticism, and the racial/class elements to it—but I will.
It definitely has me feeling energized. Charged to continue shining the light on other pieces of media that are neglected by the traditional writer—white (derogatory), upper class (derogatory), well-credentialed (derogatory), woke (derogatory).
More than anything, I hope to inspire more people to join me in sharing their thoughts and feelings.
Here were my thoughts from the video:
The reason that Future is one of my favorite artists, is that he weaponizes ignorance and makes it luxury.
So I do not just enjoy his music on the surface level. Like it’s amazing in that sense. Sonically, blasting it in the car, getting high and listening to it. It’s boy music. Working out to it and all the other things we associate with hyper masculinity.
But I actually think it’s very deep too. Let me explain, because I was just really listening to one of his lyrics and it really hit me why I love him so much.
BOUGHT A FOREIGN, COULD BARELY PRONOUNCE IT
So in that line, we see the embodiment of wealth without literacy. It’s like telling the gatekeepers that the rules they make only apply to them. Not me.
I’m going to openly break your rules and still ascend, still run in the same circles as you, still drive the same cars as you.
It also really connects if you’ve ever felt like you’ve betrayed yourself by code switching. It’s pure hubris. It’s him flaunting his lack of cultural sophistication as power. It’s oddly vulnerable and self aware.
He kind of flips it back and brazenly displays the id of capitalistic pursuit. It’s dark, dark energy. It’s the inverse of enlightenment. It’s disconnected. It’s transgressive.
It mocks the criteria for being legitimate. He is indifferent to the etiquette. He’s no assimilating, he is infiltrating these circles and spaces. He’s saying I don’t speak your language or ever care to. I am going to acquire without understanding. And that is all that matters to me. If that bothers you, then that’s your problem.
People don’t appreciate that a lot of music or media that is darker or perceived as simpler/shallower is actually much deeper. Perhaps deeper than the rest.
