Can you think of a more on-brand title for a Future album than I Never Liked You?
At this point in his career, Future knows exactly what his fans want from him, and he’s embracing it. Alongside guests like Kanye, Drake, Gunna, Young Thug, Kodak Black, and Tems, he’s here to lean into the meme and deliver that signature Future toxicity just in time for summer.
Speaking with GQ for a recent cover story, he told fans what to expect from the album, explaining, “I’m putting myself out there. Sharing my lifestyle with the world. Sharing my pain with the world. Sharing my ups, sharing my downs with the entire universe. I’m willing to give you all of me, so you can tell me how to build on me, and make me a better me.”
After a couple initial spins, members of the Complex Music team—Andre Gee, Jordan Rose, and Jessica McKinney—shared their thoughts. Here’s our first-listen review of Future’s I Never Liked You.
Andre: “Wait For U” with Drake and Tems. When I saw the tracklist, I was scared they were going to jump Tems with toxicity, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be thematically. I really enjoyed the vibe, the melodies, and the gentle tone of the song.
Jordan: Whenever Future and Drake both tap into their melodic bags on the same track, something special happens. “Wait For U” is an example of that. Tems’ beautiful voice lines the background of the track, and it’s one of the few points on the album where Future slows down the tempo and delivers softer sounds.
Jessica: “Massaging Me” is the only song I want to hear this summer.
Andre: “Puffin On Zooties” didn’t do much for me.
Jordan: “For a Nut” might be the worst song on the album for the title alone. Gunna and Young Thug aren’t terrible, but “I can boss a bitch up for a nut” is such a ridiculously cringey hook, and the fact that Future puts that bar on loop makes for an easy skip.
Jessica: “Wait For U” and “Love Better” are my least favorite songs. “Wait For U” has a terrible Drake verse, and I think it was a real misuse of Tems’ talent. “Love Better” feels inauthentic and forced.
Andre: The highs of the album demonstrate why people would propose Future as the best rapper alive, or at least most influential. Songs like “Wait For U,” “The Way Things Goin” and “We Jus Wanna Get High” are really impressive from a structural and melodic standpoint. He’s a great songmaker, which a lot of AutoTune crooners are not. If I didn’t have to stay on top of as much music as possible as a music writer, I would just go to Future (and a few other artists’ catalogs) when I wanted to hear this kind of sound.
Jordan: Future thrives when he decides to slow down the tempo and get into his melodic bag. The most memorable and convincing moments of I Never Liked You are when it sounds like he did, in fact, like them at one point. “The Way Things Going” gives us the clearest glimpse into Future’s mental state, unobstructed by money, fame, or toxicity. On that song, it feels like he finally peeled back the curtain, and I wish there was more of that here.
Jessica: I like the beats and production. In the right setting, some tracks on this project will sound great. I realize this might be a negative for some people, but I also enjoyed Future’s commitment to being the “toxic king.” A lot of the lyrics, like, “I could boss a bitch for a nut” on “For A Nut” are sleazy and venomous, and throughout I Never Liked You, he settles into his toxic persona even more than he has in the past. It may not be for everyone, but for the people who can stomach it, there’s no one doing it quite like him.
Andre: It almost feels asinine to say (because what else would I expect?) but some of these sex and drug lines are extremely over-the-top. Some of them feel like when 16-year-olds are rapping together, trying to say the most egregious thing. Except Future is 38. Lines like “I fucked her in the butt and made her peepee” and “I’m a rich junkie, yeah all these drugs I buy” are pretty ridiculous. The latter is especially disheartening because he’s expressed disappointment at how Juice WRLD and others admitted that he contributed to making drugs seem cool to them. Also, given how much he’s leaned into the “toxic king” persona over the past couple of years, some of this feels like he’s intentionally going forth with self-parody, like Kanye and Drake do from time to time, except it’s not self-deprecating.
Jordan: I can’t be the only person tired of hearing how Future can “boss up” the women he’s involved with. His albums are marked by their outrageously toxic and quotable lines, but those bars fall short because they’re getting stale. Future isn’t getting creative with his patented formula, and because of that, his hallmark toxicity doesn’t even sound very convincing anymore.
Jessica: My least favorite moments are when Future slows it down. I’m not really interested in hearing Future croon on trap beats about relationships and fake love.
Andre: I really like EST GEE on “Chickens,” but off first listen, I feel like Drake slid on “I’m On One.”
Jordan: Drake and Future rarely miss together, and that chemistry makes both of Drizzy’s contributions sound effortless on this album. Tems also delivers an amazing performance on “Wait For U,” but I think Drake’s verse on “I’m On One” stands out from the rest.
Jessica: Drake’s part on “I’m On One.” He leans into Future’s toxic lane with bars about sleeping with girls on Paris ferris wheels, and giving twerking instructions. If there’s one thing Future and Drake know how to do together, it’s making summer club anthems that are just easily accessible to both men and women.
Andre: First of all, you can ditto everything I said in my Certified Lover Boy review about how immature the album is when it comes to women and romance. That said, I don’t feel those things as strongly about Future’s music as I do Drake’s, because Future’s albums don’t feel as conflicted. He’s fully leaned into his persona in a manner similar to a Too Short or Suga Free. For better or worse, you know what you’re getting from a Future album, and it’s easier to accept as a character.
But what’s interesting to me about overtly misogynistic artists like Future is how avidly some “everyday men” support him. They don’t have the money or power to get away with treating women as disposably as these records depict, but they still bump them because they wish they did. His massive support says a lot about society’s romantic relations, especially amongst young people.
Overall, it’s a pretty good album that does good fan service. There are some moments on here I’ll come back to. I do think there’s an interesting link between fans feeling like he’s too old for some of these lyrics and headlines, and the theorizing that his recent projects have been stagnant. I’m curious to see how he feels once he turns 40, from a personal and musical standpoint.
I would have liked to see him explore more ideas like “havin’ the time of my life but I’m fucked up” on “Back To The Basics.” It’s kind of annoying when artists wait until the end of an album to explore ideas and moods they could have delved further into and made a stronger project.
Jordan: Toxic bars and gaslighting are to be expected from a new Future album. I get it. They would just be more digestible if he were 16 and not 38. I don’t think Future needs to completely reinvent himself or his sound to be successful or compelling (clearly his core fanbase doesn’t care how old he is) but at some point, we need to zoom out and question what he’s actually saying and who he’s empowering. It’s not like Future is finding new and unique ways to rhyme about his familiar subject matter either, like what Pusha-T does with coke on It’s Almost Dry. Instead, he backtracks in certain moments on this album, making it very clear that he does care about his former lovers, even though his social media persona and nonchalant attitude make it seem otherwise. How does an album called I Never Liked You end with a bar like, “After I fuck you, let me cry on your shoulder?” This album thrives when Future taps into the emotions he claims he doesn’t have, and it sounds like he might just need therapy instead of trying to be a fantasy to the women he meets.
Jessica: I thought I was going to like this album way more than I actually did. I went in expecting high-energy songs from top to bottom that illustrated Future’s promiscuous lifestyle. In some ways, that’s kind of what I got. The toxicity was definitely there, and there were a few uptempo records, but there were also a handful of slower, more sensitive tracks that I didn’t expect. There’s nothing terribly bad about the slower songs, or even the album as a whole, it just wasn’t what I expected or wanted from him right now. Although my first impression isn’t a rave review, I do think this album has potential to grow on me, especially as we move into the warmer months and more live events start to take place.
