For years, Future’s music has been about chasing highs. In Nayvadius Wilburn’s world, the addictions may change, but everything else stays the same. Sometimes the drugs are the work of Big Pharma: Comethazine, Codeine, Xanax, Percocet, Adderall. Other times the substance is universal: conquering heartbreak, purging childhood scars, escaping poverty. Then, in rare doses, Future’s pain is specifically Future’s: it will center on the peaks of celebrity infatuation and the messy comedown of its implosion. His constant quest for the perfect hit of serotonin has become our own, bleeding into the way we listen to Future.
Ever since his mid-2000s mixtape run — Monster, Beast Mode, 56 Nights — consumers have been rewarded for mining the latest nooks and crannies of Future’s psyche. We make his pain our pain, and then repurpose that feeling for easy-to-produce memes. Joking about the intense pain that Future has made a primary theme in his work is a cottage industry all its own — the content wheel that keeps on spinning, if you will.
On Future’s latest album, the aptly titled High Off Life, he wants us to believe his new addiction is existence, and the positivity one must have to cherish it. In reality, the calm hanging over High Off Life is his latest muse and rumored partner, Lori Harvey.
“Accepting My Flaws” doesn’t fit neatly into the pantheon of Future love songs. It’s devoid of the innocent sentimentality of 2014’s “I Won” or the tropical exuberance of 2017’s “Incredible.” Instead, the ominous wails of the Southside-produced song arrive like the rallying cry of an unending war that finally shows signs of abating. What he’s fighting for is stated plainly: “Give me glory, give me Lori, that’s victory.” The chorus features Future asking the Lord for forgiveness, using a day to “sober up,” and admitting that he’s found therapy in his new love. In a clipped and hurried voice Future raps, “I’ve been tryna fight my demons, I’ve been tryna fight my cup,” almost as if he’s trying to convince himself that, this time, everything will be different.
Future positions him and his partner as allies against the world for the next verse. For four minutes, paranoia and passion are indecipherable from each other. One moment he’s begging her, “Don’t you let ’em turn you on me” and the next details the inner workings of their “chemistry.” Future wants the world to know he’s happy but, more importantly, seems concerned with exacting his vengeance upon those who doubted that his newfound contentment was achievable.
The most telling lyric of “Accepting My Flaws,” arrives without fanfare and finally reveals what Future has been fighting for all along: “Fall in love with revenge, hopin’ that’ll kill my demons,” he raps. The drugs and lovers change, but loving adversity, for Future, does not.
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