FUTURE TO THE WORLD: HENDRXX COMES OUT STRONG
2:30 AM in West Side Harlem.
I’m working on some meme video I made for the new Frank Ocean, Calvin Harris, & Migos track. Slide. I’m an intern for Complex, so I figured it was worth a shot to make something fun. Track of summer ’17, might I add.
The video features Steve Carrell in 40 Year-Old Virgin, dancing around with Seth Rogan and co after having sex for the first time. Elation, happiness, and euphoria — to the tune of Slide. It’s a meme world and we’re just living in it.
I wrap up the vid and get ready for bed. I think to myself, “Yo, that new Future album just dropped. I should give some records a quick listen.”
So I do.
I get through the My Collection. I hear the word “residuals” in the first line and I’m convinced that the hip hop-powers-that-be have a quota to reach every year with that word. Residuals is the most used word in hip hop next to VVS — anyways, I digress.
My initial thoughts revolve around the idea that this album is going to be personal. And sound different — more of an R&B super Fewtch. Think Weeknd, circa Trilogy sounds, but with Future’s trademark rasp over them — sultry Nat King Cole rapping over XO-sounding beats. I’m all ears.
Future goes right in. Ciara. Baby Future. Athletes and musicians on speed dial. The back and forth of infidelity — He’s revealing his side of the Ciara struggle for the first time ever, and does so bravely and boldly in the first track of Hendrxx. The angelic backing vocals, a la Metro Boomin, provide Future a soft foundation to speak his shit.
At this point, I’m intrigued as hell. It’s 3ish AM in the morning and here I am, digging through this Future album.
Track 2: Comin Out Strong ft. The Weeknd. I’m already anticipating fire because this duo does nothing other than put up W’s when they link.
The Weeknd starts off the track and it’s beautiful —reminiscent of that aforementioned Trilogy Weeknd, with the airy XO-like sound and those soft, yet aggressive, vocal bars. I’m instantly hooked.
Weeknd sets up the table: do you know who I am? Do you see me only for face value? Are you only concerned with the surface level of me? Do you not know how great I am? Don’t you know how disrespected I feel when you don’t take me seriously? Do you take my kindness for weakness? Silent confidence, secret hustle, vengeful fruition. Just because I don’t dance, doesn’t mean I’m not making moves. Time to level up. I’m coming out strong.
Layers of juxtapositions. A back and forth of unworthiness transcending to success. I’m with it.
Then it happens.
Future’s first verse.
The sultry rasp is singing. About something. Something very, very important. Significant. Ground-breaking.
There is a cryptic ad lib that catches my ear in the background. It sounds like a number of things. “Stick”. “Eek”. “Quick”. “Geek”. “Ick”. It begins to sound cryptic on purpose — like it’s trying to communicate through Future’s verse. Hold on to that thought.
“The only time I feel alive when I taste it
I want a Vic but I know it ain't safe”
I stop the track. I run through what I just heard again. Mind you, it’s 4AM, and people start to hear, see, and think things at this time.
I backtrack the song.
“The only time I feel alive when I taste it
I want a Vic but I know it ain't safe”
Yo. It definitely sounds like what I thought I heard.
“The only time I feel alive when I taste —DICK—
I want a—DICK— but I know it ain't safe”
Future is gay. No he’s not. Bruh. What. Future isn’t gay — he loves women. Right? Right?!
He’s gay. No. He’s Bi. He fucks bitches in Gucci flip-flops— he can’t be gay! But he just said he only feels alive when he tastes — NO.
Replay the song.
“The only time I feel alive when I taste —DICK—
I want a—DICK— but I know it ain't safe”
Fuck. I can’t unhear that. He’s bi-sexual. This is his confessional. I’m damn near convinced.
I skip through the song, and listen to certain words and bars. Closely.
“Must be out of your mind, do you know who I am?
Used to hit it from behind, do you know who I am?
I can't give you all my time, do you know who I am?”
Yo………. do we know who Future is? Who he really is? Is this him telling us who he really is? A peek into the Hendrxx side of the Future mythos?
And the song is called Comin Out Strong, with an overarching theme of a personality/struggle tucked away underpushing through the BS with success. Who’s had more BS to push through with constant press on his previous relationship with Ciara, and the care-taking of his son baby Future? Who’s been more successful than Future, as of recent? Future’s struggles all seem to make more sense.
One more point of evidence:
“My life is more effective than a cocaine drought
'Cause I would travel to grandma's house when I came out
I said it for the streets, they made my own lane, oh ”
Lines from Use Me. If those lines don’t speak to my point, then I don’t know what I can write further to convince you.
I could definitely be completely, totally and utterly wrong. If I take that monstrous L, I’ll gladly take it directly from Future the god himself. But there’s no convincing me otherwise that Future revealed his bi-sexual orientation. The cryptic ad-libs are too purposefully placed. This had to go through A&R, friends, family, and other artists close to Future, most specifically The Weeknd. It sounds way too close to call it a mistake or coincidence. The entire track is carefully crafted to house a message so sacred to Future. He spoke his piece on Ciara in My Collection, and is now speaking his piece on himself —his most inner-self — on Coming Out Strong.
The smoking gun?
“It might get more attention than I want it to get. It might get the wrong attention, it might get great attention. Who knows? I just know it’s a song I feel good about. This is me not holding anything back.”
Future said it himself, in an interview with none other than the music break-down GOAT, Zane Lowe.
They talked about My Collection explicitly, thus ruling that track out as the “controversial” song. Comin Out Strong is the controversial track, and Future stating his bi-sexual orientation is the controversial statement; by cryptically stating he feels alive when interacting with the male part, and knowing it’s not safe to want to interact with the male part in the hip hop world — well, in the real world — as a successful black male hip hop artist is taboo. Potentially career suicide in the hip hop world. But moreso than anything, truly brave. Truly courageous. Truly strong.
The rest of the album after Comin Out Strong is truly, for a lack of better words, Future’s coming out party. It’s Future in his purest, most intrinsic, most honest self — and that’s why it sounds so raw, effortless, new, and flat-out good. He’s belting it out all over the album, singing. Truly assuming that “Nat King Cole of rap” role.
"I was just using it as a title instead of actually being honest in the music. This is me opening up and just letting it all out so I can just move past it and certain things, I don’t have to speak on it again,” said Future about misusing the Honest namesake for a previous album. Future is the Future we know. Hendrxx is the true Honest --- the new Future.
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From making a meme video for a Frank track, to currently crafting a careful, thoughtful think-piece about Future, one thing is clear: these artists are saying so much, and if you are willing to listen— and truly listen—the music, the art, and the message are thus, truly heard.