Album Review: Future, ‘I Never Liked You’

Even when Future isn’t actively working his way through a studio album cycle, his omnipresence in pop culture simply cannot be overstated. From countless guest verses including major successes like “Way 2 Sexy,” “Pushin P,” and “Me or Sum,” to his own Valentine’s Day antihero anthem “Worst Day,” Future hasn’t exactly been on a hiatus. I Never Liked You, his ninth studio album and first since 2020’s High Off Life, finds the Atlanta trap icon stepping into center stage. Future’s latest record should be great, but these tracks are relatively hollow derivatives of stronger and more interesting Future songs from past records. Future’s commitment to self-caricature prevents the album from displaying any moments of accountability or genuine vulnerability — the moments that made past records quintessential. The introspective nuances of Future’s songwriting have been flattened by his seemingly endless embrace of the King of Toxicity character that he, and the public, spent the past decade honing. Those thematic drawbacks coupled with inconsistent beats and lackluster hooks result in an album that is simply fine.

The title of Future’s latest offering was a warning. I Never Liked You is loaded with Future-isms that bask in what borders on the absurd. “712PM,” the album’s inconsistent opening track, features the line, “Oh, she don’t like girls, bet this money make a bitch so gay.” Young Thug raps “Just put some diamonds in her butt / And I seen it shinin' when she nut,” on “For A Nut,” a less compelling follow-up to “Pushin P.” “Gold Stacks” finds Future rapping “Throw some hundreds like ones, make a straight girl bi.” Throughout I Never Liked You, Future tasks himself with playing into The King of Toxicity shtick by delivering outlandish bars that provide predictably short-lived shock value at best. If Future didn’t insist on being held captive by his own image, then he could have created an opportunity for a sly commentary on his musical persona — something that he already started on projects like 2017’s HNDRXX.

I Never Liked You is an album of passable Future songs. “I’m That Nigga” is an enjoyable shit-talking anthem with a chorus that thrives on hypnotizing simplicity and interpolation of Young Thug’s “Hot.” Kanye West stops by for a surprisingly great appearance on “Keep It Burnin.” The bass echoes the underlying darkness of most Donda and Donda 2 tracks, and Kanye’s jabs at the current administration still hold weight regardless of the messenger (“‘We did it, Joe,’ but what they really do?”). “Puffin On Zootiez” provides a welcome change of tempo to a more reflective and downcast state. Over somber guitar and an operatic vocal loop, Future raps “I'm never sober, don't think I'ma quit / I pop the E, I can feel when it kick.” Musically and lyrically, this is the first point on the album where everything clicks; Future adds a bit of drug-laced melancholy to counterbalance his lustful tirades of control and carelessness. “Puffin On Zootiez” is also one of I Never Liked You’s earliest moments of synergy between the lyrics and production. Outside of the oscillating video game-esque synths and hoarse whistles in “For A Nut,” “Puffin On Zootiez” is one of the clearest production standouts on the first half of the album.

“Wait For U,” a hazy collaboration with Drake and Tems, has already dominated the Billboard Hot 100, and it’s a fitting centerpiece for I Never Liked You. Tems’s contributions to this song consist of a sample of her 2020 track “Higher.” Tems ascended to international recognition by way of “Essence,” her era-defining hit duet with Wizkid. Her alluring tone anchors “Wait For U” as both Drake and Future sleepwalk their way through verses that cover the predictable themes of drugs, relationship failures and miscommunications, sex, and, of course, some toxicity. The drums and guitar point “Wait For U” in a more punk-pop adjacent lane, and lyrics like “I get more vulnerable when I do pills / When you drunk, you tell me exactly how you feel,” place the song at the intersection of Future’s history of drug-fueled honesty and TikTok melodrama. Given the current musical state of each individual artist and the impending race for Song of the Summer, “Wait For U” is a much darker and less obvious endpoint. Regardless, the song is an undeniable hit; even on Auto-Pilot, Drake and Future know how to make a song pop.

Women are a constant fixture in Future’s music, and they are notably absent from the vast majority of his albums. I Never Liked You cycles through the same predictable set of collaborators that mainstream male rappers can’t seem to let go of: Drake, Gunna, Young Thug, Kanye West, Lil Baby, Lil Durk, Kodak Black, etc. — it’s like listening to the same album 40 times over. None of the guest artists truly impress outside of EST Gee on “Chickens.” Drake makes a second appearance on “I’m On One,” but a seemingly unironic use of “Bust down Thotiana” in the Lord’s year of 2022 is nothing less than eye-roll-inducing. Given the popularity of Afrobeats and her own rising profile, Tems’s appearance on the album isn’t particularly surprising. Nevertheless, she functions as the only glimpse at a woman’s perspective… and it’s a sample. Future’s penchant for misogynistic lyrics that routinely cast women in roles of hypersexual subservience contextualizes the decision to dress the album’s only female voice in shadows. “Love You Better,” probably the most HNDRXX-esque song on the album, immediately follows “Wait For U” with some genuinely great lower register moments. In this song, Future acknowledges that the woman he’s dealing with deserves better love and treatment than he has given her, but, as usual, he refuses to take the steps to do that himself. Later in “Back to the Basics,” he raps, “After we make love, let me cry on your shoulder.” Future refuses to take any accountability for himself, and, even in his most intense moments of vulnerability, he burdens his partner with his emotional baggage instead of unpacking it himself. This is the issue with I Never Liked You: on past albums Future would have allowed himself more room to interrogate the ways his past damaged him. Future’s toxicity captivated pop culture because it was nuanced; the iteration he elected to display on I Never Liked You sacrifices nuance for tired accounts of sexcapades. It’s ultimately an artistic regression that’s masqueraded by catchy hooks and some truly stellar production moments (“Holy Ghost”) whenever ATL Jacob decides to not phone it in.

Like any Future album, I Never Liked You has some undeniable hits, some great bars, and some genuinely exciting beats. Unlike any great Future album, I Never Liked You is helmed by a Future that feels more distant than ever. Backed into a corner by a monster of his own creation, Future has delivered an album that will rank among the more middling offerings in his illustrious career.

Key Tracks: “Puffin On Zootiez” | “Holy Ghost” | “Keep It Burnin” | “Chickens” | “Back to the Basics”

Score: 60