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 wasn’t a dope boy or had even done any drugs, even though my bank account was a’
{}}}}}}}}}}\, even though I hadn’t made it to the strip club (and didn’t enjoy it when I did)—I felt a kinship with the energy being expressed.
As a young man, I never liked following rules. I had no respect for authority, starting with my own parents. And especially institutions (that one remains to this day, and if anything it’s stronger).
I was often only looking out for myself, reaching my goals by any means necessary. I had little regard for the feelings of my romantic interests, cheating on both of my high school girlfriends.
I was always running some kind of hustle—the narcotics of attention, validation, reputation, dopamine, achievement. I was addicted to leverage, to being in control. To going. Getting it. And waking up tomorrow to do it all over again.
I wanted to win even when there was nothing to win. I’d manipulate teachers to extend deadlines for our period, friends to cover debts for me, girls to compete over me. My ambition wasn’t noble—it was hunger without direction, a need to prove I could get away with anything. I wasn’t selling work, I was selling image.
Practicing the same dark art Future has perfected—detachment as dominance. Hustling to fill the emptiness inside. And overcompensation to combat the discomfort I felt within myself and the perceived boxes people wanted to put me in. The limits I was being told I had to conform to.
To make things worse—I was this way by choice. Not trauma. I was raised by a loving two parent family, affectionate siblings, loved by wonderful women, supported by incredible friends. I pretty much had everything go right for me always. I thank God for all the grace he gave me when I was undeserving. All the people in my life that must have been seeing past the ugly mask. I was the epitome of youngest child, son of a Latina mom.
So yes. I was a straight A student. A scrawny nerd. But for some reason, God gave me the mind and hubris of a self made tyrant. And the success that comes with immoral high conviction unapologetic action. ME, ME, ME, ME. W, W, W, W.
Books were the only place where I felt anything resembling compassion. For some reason—there and only there would I cry, long, suffer. I guess that was the realest part of me that was fighting to stay alive.
But in day to day life, I abused my gift of gab and dimply smile and innocent appearance. With reckless abandon.
A decade passed. I graduated college.
Then I turned 22. And I woke up. To a giant spiritual hangover. To self awareness for the first time ever. To a negative emotion for the first time ever.
It was... a lot.
I felt guilty for two years. Literally two whole years of perpetual atonement. Self imposed suffering. I was still assertive, I was still going for it, but for once—I was letting myself feel the pain, the insecurity, the entire spectrum of the human experience.
Then I tried to overcompensate by being mechanically kind, selfless, helpful. I let people walk over me, hoping God was watching and redeeming me.
And then around 24, I stabilized. I stopped carrying the weight of the selfish asshole I had been. I focused on being better in the present.
And over the next few years I experienced life as a normal human being. Ups and downs actually being felt. Real sensitivity. To my own inner world, but more importantly to the inner worlds of others.
And now at almost 29, I can say I feel fully integrated. I simply am. My healthiest self. I know I still have more to grow, more to learn, more to evolve, but I feel maxed out at what life has thrown at me so far.
I tell you this so you understand how and why I analyze media the way I do.
When I consume “dark”, “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.
A Call to Arms
I’m excited that this is the future. Our future.
I’m honored to play my part in rallying the troops. In informing the gatekeepers of their inevitable fates.
This is the two sided lineage I come from. Those who play the game, win it (of course) and then rewrite the rules to help others win (the best part).
But also those who spark the fire that burns it all down.
There are an equal amount of capitalists and communists in my family. There are an equal amount of criminals and lawyers in my inner circle. Drug dealers and professors. My favorite great uncle, the kindest, most well read man I knew—killed a military police officer at a protest in his youth. With his own baton.
There are segments of society that were first oppressed—for a very, very long tine. Then no longer oppressed but ignored. Then no longer ignored but exploited as puppets.
If you have to wonder if you are part of one of these segments, you are clearly not. And I say this as someone who has never felt a conscious victim, or an explicit chip on the shoulder.
We are done with that. No longer content with being a class of people that things happen to.
So there’s only one step left. It’s already been in the works. Future songs sketching the blueprint.
MAN, WHERE YA ASS WAS AT WHEN WE TOOK THE CITY OVER?
JEREMIAH 1:10
SEE, I HAVE THIS DAY SET THEE OVER THE NATIONS AND OVER THE KINGDOMS, TO ROOUT, AND TO PULL DOWN, AND TO DESTROY, AND TO THROW DOWN, TO BUILD AND TO PLANT.
Because that’s the calling. To destroy and rebuild. The world out there? Absolutely.
But starting with the world inside.
The same mind that once schemed and seduced and finessed now turns that force towards creation, acceptance, nourishment. The same appetite that chased validation now hungers for meaning.
I still have the same darkness, arrogance, drive but it’s all been baptized, transmuted, channeled into higher purpose. I don’t reject my shadow, I command it.
Future taught me that power without purity is still power, but it will collapse in on itself in due time.
Power that serves purpose is divine. Restorative. Radiant. It heals. It shines.
So if God gave the mind of a tyrant, maybe it was only so I could learn to rule myself first.
I seek the mirrors that make me rise and pound my chest, but then bring me to my knees to remember true exaltation is in humility.
