As OutKast’s André 3000 puts it, “Future make the most negative inspirational music ever.” They collectively narcotized the Top 40, made Future one of the most popular rappers on Earth, and bulldozed a path for a generation of rappers and producers (including Juice WRLD, Lil Baby and Gunna, and many more) to reign at the top of today’s charts. Each name served a purpose to Future, and each was deployed with an overarching goal: to translate Future’s pain, heartbreak and trauma into a new form of pop music. “Astronaut Kid, Pluto, Future Hendrix,” he says, as if forgetting any of them would cause him pain. When I begin to list the aliases he’s amassed over the past eight years, he steps in to finish the sentence. He has enough artistic personas to create his own bass- and AutoTune-fueled superhero team. “What have I done? What have I done to other people? What I did to myself?'” I can’t apologize for something that” - he takes a long pause - “I can’t apologize for being myself, but I do apologize if being myself caused you to act out of character.” So, do I be mad about me being honest about me and being honest on what’s going on in the world and creating from it? And I thought about it. He bargains with himself in real time, measuring out the guilt he should or shouldn’t feel. With each sentence, you can hear Future grappling with how much responsibility he should bear for lives that aren’t his. Like, ‘Damn, what have I done? What have I done to other people? What I did to myself?'” It’s like, this shit really fucked me up for a minute. He continues: “I wasn’t aware of that influence, but now I’m aware of how much it influenced. Four years ago, I probably wouldn’t have cared if he told me: ‘Oh, that was good you was drinking.’ Now it’s like, ‘Oh shit.’ How many other sixth-graders did I influence to drink lean?” I didn’t think I’d care about that stuff. More than that I thought it would bother me when he told me that. “When he told me that, I was like ‘Oh shit. While working on it, Juice revealed that listening to Future’s music inspired him to try lean as a child.
Last year, he joined up with the then-teenaged Chicago rapper Juice WRLD for a mixtape called WRLD on Drugs. Today, he can’t believe how far and wide the influence of his codeine-laced creative streak carried. Lean is so imbued in his music and image that, according to a recent interview with Genius, he was worried to let fans know he’d quit, for fear it would be too big a shock. The drug is what lent Dirty Sprite its title (along with its blockbuster 2015 successor, DS2 ), and it has long functioned as both a muse and preoccupation for Future. “I made it seem so cool,” Future says, sadly. Now, Nayvadius Wilburn is declaring the end of that chapter, split between relief and haunted by what, exactly, he wrought.
The tape - and everything that came with it the drink, the drugs, the Future persona - spawned an era. It’s the eighth anniversary of Dirty Sprite, the 2011 mixtape that served as the foundation for an impossibly prolific run for the rapper. Future lounges in a white office, in a cream coat, occasionally flashing his pearly white teeth.