30-Foot Ceilings in My Glass House: On Future’s “Shotgun”

Open the purple blinds, Evan Nabavian goes in on the new Hendrix single.
By    August 9, 2019

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Does Future have another song like “Shotgun”? Where his heart is all the way open and his R&B leanings start to get saccharine?

“Turn on the Lights” is more lighthearted and jaunty. Same with HNDRXX album cuts like “Testify” and “Fresh Air.” “Use Me” comes close but Future spends the second verse navel-gazing. “Honest” flexes too hard for its heart to show. Not “Rich Sex” — there was nothing heartfelt about Future’s romp with Blac Chyna. Maybe “Good Morning” or his subsequent take on “Drunk In Love”?
No. “Shotgun” is special, even for a guy who made his name pouring out his feelings. Future sings an obsessive ballad to a woman on whom he lavishes the contents of a few bank accounts. He holds nothing back on the impassioned hook where he sings like a gravel-voiced Shirley Basey. Euphoria is a new color on Future, whose most emotional fare usually finds him sedated and numb. He’s hyper-lucid on “Shotgun,” trading his styrofoam cup for pink molly and luxuriating in diamonds, crystal pools, and glass houses with thirty-foot ceilings — trophies he gets to share the girl who didn’t give up on him. She sits up front.
Melody and singing are native to Future’s repertoire. He can put “Shotgun” on the same album as a haute trap banger like “Government Official” and they won’t sound like they were made by different people or for different audiences because they’re anchored on Future’s voice and persona. But a greater feat than getting his disparate styles to mesh is developing on his past work to make the best R&B song of the year.

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