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‘High Off Life’ Album Review – Our Toxic King Is Back

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Our toxic king has returned in full force with the release of High Off Life. It’s been almost a year since Future released SAVE ME, an EP made up entirely of R&B/Soul tracks – a nice change of pace for the trap pioneer. Leading up to today’s album release, Future was busy setting the stage for his new album on Twitter.

I knew from the second I saw these tweets that Future was on a mission with High Off Life: to give every “ain’t shit” guy an anthem…and I think I found it. Future’s entire mantra can be summarized in the following line from “Ridin Strikers”:

Can’t stand it, won’t enjoy life if it ain’t toxic.

Above all, this line tells me that Future is completely self-aware. If you have Twitter, then you know that he has become somewhat of an icon in regards to his toxic lyrics…you know the tweet I’m talking about. Even though it gets recycled every holiday, it’s hilarious every single time.

I’d be lying if I said I’d never sent one of these texts, but what can I say? Future was one of my most-listened-to artists during my impressionable teenage years (I’ve listened to DS2 more times than I can count), so some of that toxicity was bound to rub off on me.

Back to High Off Life. With features on the album including Travis Scott, Lil Uzi Vert, Drake, Meek Mill, and Young Thug, I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me my favorite feature would be YoungBoy NBA. I mean, have you listened to 38 Baby 2? Me either. But that’s the reality of the situation – “Trillionaire” is my favorite new song on the album excluding “Life Is Good”, which was previously released as a single.

Certified bangers:

  • “Ridin Strikers”
  • “Trillionaire”
  • “Too Comfortable”
  • “All Bad”
  • “Life Is Good”

However, it does seem like people are overhyping this album a bit and giving it more credit than I think it’s due. As many bangers as Future put out, he couldn’t help but include some rather underwhelming tracks as well. But that’s what happens when you include 21 songs on a single album. Even though long albums are most definitely Future’s “thing”, sorry not sorry, but that’s just too long. DS2 is one of the few albums ever that had north of fifteen songs and remained consistently good all the way through, but for the most part, albums should be more concise.

One problem I run into with Future from time to time when I listen to one of his albums from start to finish is that some of the songs start to sound the same. This goes unnoticed in the long run because those songs aren’t the ones being played on the radio, but it’s definitely noticeable when you listen to the album in one sitting. This goes back to my notion that I think he should cut down the length of his albums. For example, if he left off “Trapped in the Sun”, “HiTek Tek”, “Up the River”, and “Life Is Good [Remix]”, I think High Off Life would’ve been better for it. Yes, I think “Life Is Good [Remix]”  is trash…you shouldn’t mess with perfection. That’s like making Scarface…oh wait.

To end this article with one of the album’s highlights, I think we can all agree it’s Travis Scott’s verse in “Solitaires”. I love Travis as much as the next guy, but overall I thought the song was just okay. What made it stand out was this line:

Been humpin’wifey for so long, she got a limp when she walk.

Kylie Jenner is arguably the most influential person in the world right now, so the fact that at the end of the day she’s still just a rapper’s girlfriend and is prone to lyrical references like any other woman is hilarious. Like just imagine that behind every Instagram post and Snapchat story, there’s a very sore vagina courtesy of Travis Scott?

I have to believe Travis was forced to get the “OK” from Kris Jenner before recording, but I hope he went rogue and didn’t tell any of the Kardashians about this verse beforehand.

High Off Life overall score: 7.4/10

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