Future / Metro Boomin: “Like That” [ft. Kendrick Lamar] Observe Evaluate

Future and Metro Boomin collaborations have at all times straddled the road between playful and sinister. Since their first team-up on 2013’s “Sincere,” watching them each persistently tweak that chemistry has made for among the most thrilling rap high-wire acts of the final decade (“I Serve the Base” and “Masks Off,” particularly, are nonetheless prompt party-starters). Someway, Future and Metro haven’t launched a full-length venture collectively, which makes this week’s We Don’t Belief You—the primary of two new albums coming from the Freebandz associates—a landmark occasion. And, up to now, all eyes are on sixth monitor “Like That.” As thrilling as it’s to lastly have a full-length from the duo, “Like That” doesn’t present both on the peak of their powers. In actual fact, it’s boilerplate by their requirements, Future boasting about anonymous one-off flings and limitless provides of medication over a so-so Metro beat that splits the distinction between fashionable Atlanta and classic California and Memphis.

It’s visitor Kendrick Lamar who supplies the track’s showstopping second, dropping the therapeutic malaise of 2022’s Mr. Morale & the Massive Steppers in favor of coming immediately at contemporaries J. Cole and Drake after years of subliminals. The three are sometimes seen as the large canine of contemporary rap, however Kendrick makes use of his frenzied verse to stake his declare to the highest spot. “Fuck sneak dissin’, first particular person shooter/I hope they got here with three switches,” he growls, referencing Cole and Drake’s current single “First Particular person Shooter” earlier than swiping at Drake’s standing as a Michael Jackson–degree star with a intelligent and nasty nod to Jackson’s beef with one other music icon: “Nigga, Prince outlived Mike Jack.” Kendrick not often sounds unfocused, however right here he sounds notably possessed, invoking rap luminaries and his personal safety guard in a hungry show on par along with his genre-shaking verse on Massive Sean’s 2013 track “Management.” Future is undoubtedly one of many largest and most iNFLuential rappers working, however even he and Metro appear to know the gravity of the second. As Future begins his second verse, it slowly fades out earlier than it will get off the bottom, the duo sidestepping the crater left in the course of their track.