Future and Metro Boomin combine to make one of the best rapper-producer duos in Atlanta rap history, and we’re about to hear a lot of new music from them. They’ll be dropping two collaborative albums in the next month: We Don’t Trust You on March 22 and another album on April 12.
Metro Boomin has been working with Future since he was a freshman in college, executive producing some of Hendrix’s most memorable tapes (including Monster and Purple Reign), while also handling most of the heavy lifting on blockbuster albums like What A Time To Be Alive and DS2.
By now, they’ve made countless classic trap records together, soundtracking strip clubs and college parties alike. Metro knows how to turn Future’s murky codeine confessions into trap gospel, spelling out the rapper’s distorted decisions through snares. They complement each other in a way that only two Atlanta veterans could.
While we wait for their new albums, we ranked the 10 best songs that Future and Metro Boomin have made together so far.
10. Metro Boomin f/ Future & Chris Brown, “Superhero” (2022)
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Heroes & Villains is Metro Boomin’s most cinematic album to date, so it’s only right that Future shows up early in the movie with its second track, “Superhero.” Metro mixes bellowing trumpets with classic trap snares, setting the stage for Future to reveal what he would look like as a superhero. (Wearing Cuban link chains while driving a drop-top batmobile. What else?) And the subtle sample of Jay-Z’s verse from Kanye’s “So Appalled” is a perfect accent to the blockbuster track.
9. Future, “Honest” (2014)
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Future has always told us how he feels, for better or worse, which doesn’t necessarily mean he’s telling the truth, but at least he’s being honest. That’s the premise of the title track from his sophomore album, Honest, which was allegedly inspired by comments from one of his baby mothers about how he was lying about his net worth in 2014. Given that backstory, it makes it even funnier that Future chose this to be the second lead single for the album, and it has the making of everything that the rapper would become famous for later in his career. The gentle pianos that Metro incorporates into the beat serve to lighten the heavy bass that comes before it, and Future’s high-pitched crooning demonstrates his vocal range as a rapper.
8. Future f/ The Weeknd, “Low Life” (2016)
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“Low Life” peaked at No. 52 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, but it went No. 1 in the virtual streets thanks to its inclusion on GTA Online in 2016. It was the lead single for Future’s album Evol, and while the combination seemed unlikely to some at the time, it all came together in a way that made sense. “Low Life” sounds like the kind of song you’d hear while creeping through the hallways of a dimly lit underground club in a scene of Uncut Gems. Given all of the flexes that Abel and Future make in the song, it sounds like they made off with some of the money that Howard Ratner was trying to win, too.
7. Future, “Stick Talk” (2015)
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There are a few ingredients that make any Future and Metro song great, like bass-heavy production, a memorable hook, and an ignorant amount of energy. “Stick Talk” checks all of those boxes and then some, setting off alarms in strip clubs and college homecomings across America. The production isn’t overly complicated, with Metro pairing a simple four-count beat pattern and accompanying snares with a sporadic siren that helps give Future’s lyrics even more of a bounce than usual. Even if you can’t understand those bars because “you’re too soft,” the song rings off all the same.
6. Future, “My Collection” (2017)
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“My Collection” might be the most Future song of all time, as he finds new and twisted ways to talk about his exes, and Metro figures out how to make the deeply toxic song sound like a love ballad. On the HNDRXX cut, Future views his former lovers as objects that he refuses to relinquish ownership of (even after they’ve parted ways) and Metro lines the song with faint vocals that make it sound more like a romantic record than what it actually is: a toxic confession that Future can’t let go of women from his past. Only Metro can turn a hook like “Even if I hit you once, you’re part of my collection” into a popular song and not a social media apology waiting to happen.
5. Future, “Purple Reign” (2016)
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Only Future could evoke the name of Prince’s iconic “Purple Rain” and make it his own. The outro for his sixteenth mixtape is a predecessor to Moneybagg Yo’s “Wockesha,” where Future personifies codeine as his girlfriend with whom he has an emotional attachment to. The song’s title plays on the idea of Future’s successful reign in rap being linked with his relationship to lean, but Metro’s production makes the whole thing sound regretful, as if recognizing the physical and emotional burden of maintaining any toxic relationship. The sullen beat, along with Future’s reflective lyrics, make “Purple Reign” one of the more layered songs in his discography.
4. Future, “Mask Off” (2017)
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The use of the flutes in rap beats went triple platinum in 2017, and “Mask Off” was leading the charge. Metro sampled Carlton Williams’ “Prison Song” and paired it with classic trap production on Future’s highest charting single at the time, which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard charts. The song caught fire online, inspiring countless freestyles (plus a remix with Kendrick Lamar) and provoking people to recreate the beat with different objects. Seven years later, it still goes just as hard.
3. Future, “Wicked” (2016)
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With “Wicked,” Metro Boomin and Southside made a song so well-produced it doesn’t even matter that Future is saying “wicked” and not “wiggle” on the hook; it gets screamed in the club all the same. As the name suggests, “Wicked” outlines just how malevolent the Atlanta rapper can be when it comes to women and his opposition in the rap game. In this instance, though, what Future is saying isn’t the most interesting thing happening on the song. It’s the way Metro and Southside make their drum kits work in tandem with each other—adding layers to Future’s performance without distracting from it.
2. Future, “I Serve The Base” (2015)
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Metro Boomin’s production choices on “I Serve The Base” are objectively insane, and not in a bad way. You expect to hear certain things when tapping into a Future and Metro song, and this track flips those expectations on their head with a jarring psychedelic beat that might trick you into thinking you’re tripping on acid in the middle of a mosh pit. It feels like some of these noises shouldn’t even be there at all—like the indescribable wailing sound that’s behind those ear-piercing bass drums and sci-fi static—but Metro, a mad scientist, figures out how to make it all work. “Base” can have several meanings here. It could be slang for crack cocaine, or a reference to the loyal “fanbase” that Future is serving with this song, but I interpret it to mean Metro is quite literally serving Earth-rattling bass to the masses.
1. Future, “Thought It Was a Drought” (2015)
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Metro Boomin has production credits on nearly every song on DS2, and that’s a big reason why it’s one of Future’s best albums. “Thought It Was A Drought” finds the Atlanta rapper at the height of his powers, turning what could be interpreted as an addiction to codeine into a street classic. “I just fucked your bitch in some Gucci flip-flops” was one of the most chant-able lines in the 2010s and it turned Future into a damn-near ambassador for the luxury sandals line. But really, what makes “Thought It Was a Drought” so special is how it holds so much cultural relevance despite being very unrelatable. Gucci flip-flops are unaffordable to most financially responsible adults and drinking codeine is not a normal hobby, but Future’s smooth delivery and Metro’s even smoother beat make it all feel commonplace. Thus are the powers of The Wizrd.
