When Atlanta trap maven Future first linked up with producer Metro Boomin a decade ago, Metro’s inventive, textured beats offered the MC an avenue to explore darker, more adventurous sounds. On We Don’t Trust You, though, Future seems content to be set dressing for Metro’s elaborate production. At one point on their first collaborative album, he raps, “I’m over this shit 1000%,” and you believe him. With few exceptions, Future sounds like he’s going through the motions.
Recounting the hedonistic pleasures of wealth in a hollowed, tortured way used to be just one move in Future’s arsenal, but now it’s seemingly his whole shtick. Metro’s work is sometimes enough to carry a track like “Everyday Hustle,” which molds a pitched-up soul sample to both Future’s clipped delivery and the track’s percussion, reminiscent of J Dilla. And Metro achieves a tonal mutability on “Slimed In,” where the vaguely psychedelic production swirls behind a quite soporific Future, veering toward something eerily optimistic before plunging into curdled depths.
In other places, though, Metro tries to do too much. The title track is outfitted with a surplus of horns, gunshots, and tacky drums that slow its momentum (and which Future’s listlessness already does its best to drag down). “Magic Don Juan (Princess Diana)” makes an attempt at the cinematic—something Metro has excelled at before on Savage Mode II, his collaborative album with 21 Savage—but save for a beat switch that employs a spike of strings and a clenched low-end, it’s ultimately less John Carpenter than Joel Schumacher or Renny Harlin.
Future doesn’t cede the spotlight only to Metro, but also to their album’s guests. Most of the fanfare surrounding We Don’t Trust You has been around Kendrick Lamar’s spot on “Like That.” But while it’s fun and predictably well-performed, Lamar’s feature is just another instance of him claiming GOAT status and putting down his peers. Playboi Carti, on the other hand, emerges as the star guest from his one minute of airtime on “Type Shit.” He’s typically delirious and mush-mouthed, bending the track to his eccentric pacing and possessed delivery.
Meanwhile, Future just shrugs. We Don’t Trust You sadly presents a rapper who was once among the most expressive voices in hip-hop, able to beckon balefully or pine with gargantuan distress or summon intense anger, as faded and almost lifeless.
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