Billboard Cover: Atlanta Rap Hero Future on Making Chart History and Kicking It With ‘Superstar Females’ Billboard (Ft. Future)
The Atlanta rap god Future, like other gods before him, is known by many names. He was born Nayvadius Wilburn into a family of street hustlers going back at least two generations.
As a kid he picked up the moniker Meathead, both for his oversize dome and, later, his general gangster toughness.
When he began rapping in his teens at his cousin Rico Wade’s Dungeon studio -- where OutKast was busy reinventing hip-hop -- he was given the name Future (as in “the future of music,” which is kind of mind-blowing, coming from a place making tunes like “So Fresh, So Clean”).
And to his friends he’s mostly known as Pluto, which is all at once the title of his 2012 major-label debut, a metaphor for getting supremely high and a symbol of the scale of his ambitions.
“I’m the astronaut kid,” he says, impassive behind a pair of ever-present sunglasses. “At the end of the day, I’m out of here -- above anything.”
But on this late-February afternoon, as he kicks back by a Miami pool with the sky turning pink and a balmy breeze rustling the palms, another nickname is foremost on the 33-year-old MC’s mind.
Pulling from a tightly rolled blunt, he waxes philosophical about his latest, greatest success: two new LPs, Future and HNDRXX, whose titles together make up what might be his favorite way of referring to himself.
As he sees it, calling himself Future Hendrix connects him to Jimi’s cosmic style, creativity and breakthrough success as a black artist in the primarily white world of rock’n’roll.
“The music I make, I’m different,” he says, rocking a Balmain denim jacket with enough silver spangling woven through it to make Axl Rose jealous. “The melodies I come up with, they’re not normal. Every black person wasn’t playing the guitar -- Hendrix did something special.”
The previous week, Future had surprised fans with the self-titled album (his sixth, not counting the hit packed mixtapes he has released through his own Freebandz label), which landed at No. 1, becoming his fourth consecutive album to do so.
Then, in a move unprecedented in chart history, HNDRXX arrived just seven days later and replaced Future in the top spot. (Epic Records says the two albums will also be combined into a physical release later this year.) Future’s clearly pleased with the success but insists that he values authenticity more than numbers.
“If I’m the biggest artist in the world, cool, but I want to just be me,” he says. “I want my money to be different. I’m not trying to have rapper money. My goal is to be able to get everything from the world that I can get.”
There aren’t a lot of modern artists with a track record like Future’s. In addition to his chart dominance, his 2016 co-headlining arena tour with Drake earned more than $80 million, according to Billboard Boxscore, making it one of the highest-grossing hip-hop tours of all time.
As a kid he picked up the moniker Meathead, both for his oversize dome and, later, his general gangster toughness.
When he began rapping in his teens at his cousin Rico Wade’s Dungeon studio -- where OutKast was busy reinventing hip-hop -- he was given the name Future (as in “the future of music,” which is kind of mind-blowing, coming from a place making tunes like “So Fresh, So Clean”).
And to his friends he’s mostly known as Pluto, which is all at once the title of his 2012 major-label debut, a metaphor for getting supremely high and a symbol of the scale of his ambitions.
“I’m the astronaut kid,” he says, impassive behind a pair of ever-present sunglasses. “At the end of the day, I’m out of here -- above anything.”
But on this late-February afternoon, as he kicks back by a Miami pool with the sky turning pink and a balmy breeze rustling the palms, another nickname is foremost on the 33-year-old MC’s mind.
Pulling from a tightly rolled blunt, he waxes philosophical about his latest, greatest success: two new LPs, Future and HNDRXX, whose titles together make up what might be his favorite way of referring to himself.
As he sees it, calling himself Future Hendrix connects him to Jimi’s cosmic style, creativity and breakthrough success as a black artist in the primarily white world of rock’n’roll.
“The music I make, I’m different,” he says, rocking a Balmain denim jacket with enough silver spangling woven through it to make Axl Rose jealous. “The melodies I come up with, they’re not normal. Every black person wasn’t playing the guitar -- Hendrix did something special.”
The previous week, Future had surprised fans with the self-titled album (his sixth, not counting the hit packed mixtapes he has released through his own Freebandz label), which landed at No. 1, becoming his fourth consecutive album to do so.
Then, in a move unprecedented in chart history, HNDRXX arrived just seven days later and replaced Future in the top spot. (Epic Records says the two albums will also be combined into a physical release later this year.) Future’s clearly pleased with the success but insists that he values authenticity more than numbers.
“If I’m the biggest artist in the world, cool, but I want to just be me,” he says. “I want my money to be different. I’m not trying to have rapper money. My goal is to be able to get everything from the world that I can get.”
There aren’t a lot of modern artists with a track record like Future’s. In addition to his chart dominance, his 2016 co-headlining arena tour with Drake earned more than $80 million, according to Billboard Boxscore, making it one of the highest-grossing hip-hop tours of all time.
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