Future Is the Best Rapper Alive - Defending GQ’s Declaration

By: Jack Mullins

GQ recently did an article on Future, declaring him “the Best Rapper Alive”, and while it’s causing a stir online, I’m glad someone finally said it. 

Future Hendrix is the best rapper alive. He delivers honesty and vulnerability through his severely underrated pen game. Sometimes Future gets written off as not being capable of being lyrical because of being a “mumble rapper”. And while he isn’t creating intricate rhyme schemes like Kendrick Lamar or double entendres like Eminem, Future is extremely talented in accurately conveying himself through his lyrics. His willingness to put his whole story, the details of his personal life, in his songs is part of this. The rest of it comes from his personal interest with poetry and expression. Future says from a young age that he fell in love with reading Shakespeare in school, specifically how he mixed his words. The attentiveness that Hendrix gives to his lyricism while giving us his whole truth allows us to relate to him in bits and pieces. While I may not live the party-driven lifestyle represented in “Throw Away”, I still feel reassured hearing someone put into words the feeling of being hung up over a breakup while the world moves forward, an experience that feels deeply unique and lonely. And although many of us can’t afford the luxuries mentioned in “Accepting My Flaws”, any average person can relate to being grateful for someone’s love.

His ability to connect with so many people comes from the severity of his emotional experiences. If he, for example, has a horrible public breakup with another celebrity, anyone going through an experience on a spectrum from just having a mild falling apart with someone of interest all the way up to going through the same tragedy as Future can relate to at least some aspect of how he feels. On the opposite end of the spectrum, when Hendrix is bragging about his wild sexual escapades, the cool energy of success in his words, that feeling of being on top of the world, can be shared by anyone, eveen someone just coming back from their first date.

Another aspect of Pluto’s appeal is what being a Future fan feels like. Despite being such a well known name in the music industry since the 2010s, the “casual music listener” who mainly listens to popular, radio play songs has likely only heard a few songs by Future. These would probably be; “Mask Off”, “Comin Out Strong”, and “Fuck Up Some Commas”. It appears to me that to the audience of casual music listeners, Future may be perceived more as a feature artist, whose name is often seen beside Drake’s. Notable examples of his popular features include “Love Me” by Lil Wayne, “Bugatti” by Ace Hood, “King’s Dead” by Kendrick Lamar, and obviously “Jumpan” with Drake. The reason why I bring this up is to say that despite his fame, being a fan of Future and really delving into his catalog feels like a, “if you know, you know” experience. Because of how vulnerable Future is, it feels like he is sharing his grievances and personal thoughts with you, the listener, directly. Some of the things that Future spits in his songs come off as disrespectful or harsh, things that anyone with a PR team would be advised against saying in an interview. But because Pluto lays out everything on the table, you can draw the lines between his feelings and his actions, justifying his toxicity with the damage of his heartbreak. This creates a feeling of exclusivity as a fan, like you really know the artist and are invested in their life. 

It seems rare that someone’s personal favorite rapper or Spotify #1 artist is Future, despite most people generally enjoying him. This is why it is so refreshing to see him being openly declared as the best rapper alive by a publication as large as GQ.

And lastly, overall as a rapper there is one factor that could put Future in the conversation of best out on its own.

He.

Doesn’t

Miss.

Seriously. Future is one of the only artists currently where when I see his name on a feature I can consistently expect him to kill his verse and my expectation is always met. But what sets Future further apart from the few artists that join him in that category is his album run. Future dropped at least 2 projects every year from 2014-2020. From 2014-2017 he released 11 projects. The quality of this 3 year run was so bizarre that while one of the albums, DS2, is considered by many to be the greatest trap album of all time, several other projects from this stretch are still widely debated to be his best work. Being able to make the greatest album of all time for a genre and potentially have your best project be regarded as something different is a wild achievement. And while statistics don’t define the quality of music, it is worth noting that Future was the first artist, and I believe at this point still the only artist, to have two different no.1 albums two weeks in a row. Having music so good that an audience split between listening to two different albums can be large enough to propel both to no.1 is remarkable.

But the craziest thing is that Future’s run isn’t over. His newest album, “I NEVER LIKED YOU”, drops Friday the 29th and in typical Future fashion, there is a guarantee that; He. Will. Not. Miss.