REVIEWS
Samanth Adebayo sheds light on the rapper’ s third album
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EVOL Future A1 Recordings, Freebandz & Epic Records?
Fun, disturbed and supported by recreational use of pharmaceuticals, EVOL delivers everything expected of Future.
And he wraps his style around the signature track Low Life which was released as the album’ s first single, and video-premiered on MTV. The song was later revealed to be included on EVOL in March 2016.
Evol is the fourth studio album by the American rapper, and was released in February this year. It debuted one Friday night during DJ Khaled’ s Beats 1 show on Apple Radio( via Epic Records). Since then club DJs have rearranged their turntables to deliver the massive rap anthems to take over 2016.
After much underground street success in Atlanta, Future blew up a storm to mainstream success with his album DS2. He was transformed from the occasional party song rapper to a rap superstar. His album What a Time To Be Alive with Drake showed his ability to mix sounds and reach more fans.
His personal life has been making more news recently due to legal battles with his ex-fiancé and pop princess Ciara. But this hasn’ t seemed to faze Future too much, and he’ s been consistently on track with recent albums and mixtapes.
Like this album which has everything for a rap fan and anyone who likes feel-good music. The songs are simple, catchy and full of fearless lyrics which ref his extensive drug use such as in: I just took some molly, what else?’( Molly is the purest form of ecstasy).
The fact Future only has one feature on this album suggests his utter self-confidence. It’ s a self-belief he has shown since earlier projects such as Monster and DS1. However, the choice of artist and song shows the smart moves he’ s making to so mainstream.
The Weekend is probably one of the most popular artists right now, and
Future’ s decision to feature him on a song like Low-Life shows he wants a sound that’ s easily accessible, something you can listen to anywhere, and not just hanging out in an Atlanta strip club.
It’ s a pity the album is so repetitive and defensive. Future covers up his real emotions with the facade of a rockstar lifestyle, even down to his nickname Future Hendrix. Eventually, fans will tire of monotonous lyric imagery which seems obsessed with clothes, jewellery, drugs and sex.
Future has got so many projects on the go, that his star is in danger of early burnout. This album felt rushed and thrown out there. That’ s the way street rappers do it, and we hoped Future had progressed beyond that. It’ s called evolution and that’ s where his projects should be at right now. This isn’ t a ground-breaking new album, though it does have an attractive rawness. But it never strays beyond its tried and tested comfort zone. Evol is a Future album. Nothing more, nothing less.
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latest continues the search for mainstream acclaim, and Sia admits this album is“ more pop” than previous material.
Lead single Alive encapsulates Sia’ s move into the safe zone. Co-written by pop-ballad
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queen Adele, the track’ s tale of reprisal, a chart music cliché, fails to inspire visions of a phoenix rising from the ashes. Save for Sia’ s majestic vocals, which is the record’ s saving grace.
The light-hearted dance hit Move Your Body is a welcome break, though it still shares many of the fault lines of earlier tracks. Here, Sia is performing Lady Gaga on a song she wrote for Shakira, while again trying to assert her own personality.
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It proves a herculean task too far. We are then slipped back into the slow stream on track five with Unstoppable. It’ s all in the same vein as Bird Set Free, One Million Bullets and Alive. It spreads the same uniform message of indestructability very thin across the album.
Once over the hill on track six, the album takes a turn for the better and embodies the more attractive, frivolous nature of pop music, with songs such as Cheap Thrills, Reaper, and personal highlight Sweet Design.
This last offers a tongue-incheek imitation of Beyonce, as
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Sia sings“ My junk, hypnotise the whole room” and“ Word travels fast, when you’ ve got an ass like mine”. This is a skinsuit that 40-year-old Sia inherits with a sense of silliness and a self-awareness not shown on more sincere cuts of the album. Sia’ s concept is interesting, and on repeated listens, I glimpse her at her most fun and extrovert. However, for the most part, the irony was lost on me. It felt less like play-acting than an attempt to shoehorn herself into the demographic of artists she was impersonating in the search for record sales. |
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