Future has been one of the defining rappers of the last 15 years. He’s an excellent songwriter with enough range to write for Beyoncé and Ciara as well as make anthems like “Mask Off”. It has manifested into some truly classic albums and mixtapes that have informed the state of hip-hop today.
But none of this would’ve been possible had he not worked with the Dungeon Family early on in his career. The iconic Atlanta group—including Outkast, Cee-Lo Green, Rico Wade, and Sleepy Brown—was transformative to his growth as an artist. Long before Future was a rap star, he was Meathead in Rico Wade’s basement as a part of Da Connect.
Those days informed how the DS2 rapper operated later on in his career. In a 2015 interview with NPR, he talked about how his cousin Wade was always about the music first. The music business always came second to a broader loyalty to his people.
Future Reflects on His Relationship With Rico Wade and Dungeon Family
“[Rico Wade] never tied OutKast up into anything, had them binded up into anything from the beginning, you know what I’m saying? From Goodie Mob, anybody in the Dungeon Family, it was all loyalty,” Future told the outlet. “Rico gave you everything he got, and if you give him half back or 100 percent back, it is what it is. You don’t want to base it off that, man. We got into this for the music. And he always told me, man, ‘Let it be about the music first, and it’s going to override everything else.’”
Future’s time in the infamous Dungeon that Outkast recorded in started back when he was 17. Coming over regularly, the older people around him consistently called him “the future of The Dungeon.” By studying his cousin Rico Wade, that eventually came true.
“I studied the way he — his production sounds. I studied when they was going to get — digging through the crates,” the Atlanta legend recalled. “You gotta go and find your snare, you gotta find that sound that you want, you know what you want, and that’s what it’s about. That’s the culture; that’s hip-hop. From graffiti, your tag on the wall in the middle of Times Square or whatever you want it at — downtown Atlanta, wherever you feel like your tag … it’s about that art and that what hip-hop originated from.”
Future released his debut album, ‘Pluto’, in 2012
Future added that he doesn’t like how much people credit autotune to his growth because of his commitment to studying. Ultimately, he takes pride in being a student first.
“And that’s what I learned from being through The Dungeon up until this point right now. That’s what helped me to reinvent myself over and over again to do music. A lot of people say AutoTune but don’t understand that I’m a student of the game; I been studying this for a long time,” Future said. “I know melody. I know rhythm; I know bass guitar; I know the piano. I know everything about music that helps build the music that go along with creating the whole art form, you know what I’m saying?”
The post Future Credits a Legendary All-Star Hip-Hop Collective for Helping Launch His Career: ‘It Was All Loyalty’ appeared first on VICE.
