There's only one Future. Just ask Future. In a new cover story chat with Highsnobiety, Future espoused the importance of artists keeping their uniqueness front and center. Staying true to self and avoiding emulation, Future explained, has been the key to his seemingly limitless success.
"Being yourself [musically] is the most important thing because if you think your shit ain't working and stop trying and then somebody else tries it and it starts working for them, you're going to be mad," Future told writer Stephanie Smith-Strickland. "Some people try to be everybody, so that’s why they burn out. There's longevity in being yourself and not trying to be 10 other people."
Of course, Future's advice to keep your uniqueness ablaze shouldn't be taken as a suggestion to ignore younger artists. The quickened pace of the modern music industry actually means established artists have to work harder to stay involved—or risk getting left behind. "Music will change in just three months, so if I go to Europe for a whole three months and come back, the music scene will be completely different," he said. "I just try to stay in tune with what's going on: I keep my eyes open for the new artists, listen to new melodies on the radio; pay attention to the tempos playing in the clubs."
In addition to discussing his tireless work ethic (and resulting prolific creative output), Future also shared some fascinating insight into the true value of a Wendy's Double Stack. While recounting a friendly argument he had about an engineer not being able to leave the studio for a week straight, Future inadvertently stumbled into an impromptu Wendy's advertisement. "Eventually he was like, 'I need to eat something else. I want to eat my mama's food,'" Future said of the engineer's complaints about the studio's all-Wendy's diet. "I think he was trying to find a reason to leave. If it ain't about the food, it had to be the name of the place or something. I ate Wendy's every day too. Man survived on a double stack. Two pieces of meat on it, it was 99 cents; it was cheap. It was cheap as a motherfucker. Wendy's owe me some promo now too."
Check the full Future x Highsnobiety bible here, then feel free to bother Wendy's about throwing Future some of those Double Stack profits.
