By Wyatt Spears
Two titans of modern rap, Future and Metro Boomin, have recently released a collaboration album, We Don’t Trust You. This duo has done a lot to shape the current sound of rap music. Future’s entrancing flow and vocals have put him at the top of the scene for many years. The rage scene owes a large part of its existence to Future’s influence. Metro Boomin, on the other hand, while not rapping but producing, has provided the beats for some of the most popular and influential tracks of modern rap, tracks such as “Mask Off” with Future, “Heartless” with The Weeknd, and “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1” with Kanye West. Metro has also been growing his sound with solo projects showing his talent for not only rap beats, but also synth work and composition. Venturing with soundtrack music, he has been expanding the potential and sound of trap music. This continues to be the case on this co-signed studio album, the first since his collaboration with 21 Savage on Savage Mode II.
There is a synergy between Future and Metro, which is undeniable, as they fit each other’s styles perfectly and elevate the music to higher and higher highs. Initially, I was worried that this project would not be interesting and just be an hour of trap slop. However, I was pleasantly surprised as the two gave me some of the most intoxicating album listens of the year so far.
The sheer variety of the songs makes the hour runtime completely justified. Each track feels meaningful and pushes the narrative of the album along as they flow between each other.
The first track, “We Don’t Trust You,” opens with Future just riffing for the whole thing over a beat that has amazing switches, the eerie atmosphere and dramatic low horns give the beat a cinematic flair that is present throughout the whole album. From there, the strongest points on the album are somewhat formulaic, but not in a bad way. A strong straightforward beat, banger hypnotic flows, with the rest of the space being colored in by Metro with synths, bells, and much more. The song, “Young Metro,” features The Weeknd giving background vocals that give the track a sci-fi feel to it, you can feel Metro stealing the show on tracks like these. Metro’s attention to detail and care for his beats is further shown on “Type Shit.” The bells in the background give the track an energy that is insane. Plus, there is a spacey, out-of-body instrumental transition that meets a Travis Scott feature, and later another deep-voice Playboi Carti feature. Moving on we hear a pinnacle of creepy trap on the song “GTA,” containing an extremely hard and downright ghoulish beat.
Future is very funny on the track, “Claustrophobic,” with again more simple but very infectious flows as well as standout refrains with him going on about feeling claustrophobic, and as a result, he has to buy another mansion, and as the track digs deeper, he’s just embracing larger levels of ridiculous excess. Leading up to the most talked about song on the album, “Like That ft. Kendrick Lamar.” The verse that has more buzz than probably the album as a whole, has Kendrick throwing shots at Drake and J Cole. As he references the track, “First Person Shooter,” where J Cole says he is part of the big three, consisting of Him, Drake and Kendrick. Kendrick shoots this down saying “Big three,…, it’s just big me.” All around this is a strong performance from Kendrick with his vocal inflections and lyricism. Future also is entertaining on the song, but the real star of the show is Metro Boomin. The southern instrumental with the squawking synth horn leads are odd but also so memorable, making it one of the hardest beats on the entire record.
As this album lasts almost an hour and has 16 tracks, of course there are a few mid tracks here and there. Especially with one of the core criticisms of this album being that it is “sooo chill,” or that it is “sooo laid back,” it is just so quiet. Even with its flaws, it is one of my favorite Future projects. This album is probably an 8/10; the blandness of some tracks is all that holds it back.
Favorite songs:
“Type Shit”