Acclaimed rapper Future and producer Metro Boomin released their highly anticipated latest album, “We Don’t Trust You” on Friday, March 20. Although Metro Boomin and Future have worked together extensively on previous works (like Metro’s “Heroes and Villains” and Future’s “DS2” ), this is their first true collaboration album. “We Don’t Trust You” also has several features from big-name artists like Travis Scott, Playboi Carti, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, and Rick Ross. On paper, it seems a very strong album, and mostly delivers on that impression. 

Metro Boomin’s production was one of the standout parts of “We Don’t Trust You”. As always, the legendary producer delivered with some of his finest beats yet. Fans of Metro will notice many similarities to his earlier work, with well produced trap beats throughout. In particular, his “ We Don’t Trust You” production sounds straight out of one of his “Savage Mode” albums with 21 Savage. 

Future as well delivered on his half of the album, with consistent rapping, pairing perfectly with Metro’s beats. However, unlike Metro, his recent style of rapping is markedly different to the “Old Future”, which blew up off “Monster” and “DS2”. Contrasted with his earlier more aggressive and bombastic style, the Future we see on “We Don’t Trust You” is calmer, more melodic, almost more mature.

A perfect example of this is the second song off the album, “Young Metro (ft. The Weeknd)”.

Future’s new rapping and Metro’s old production mesh together perfectly to create one of the highlights of the album. The Weeknd’s feature on the bridge of the song also works fantastically to link two great Future verses. 

But at the end of the day, “Young Metro” wasn’t the song everyone couldn’t stop talking about after the release. That honor certainly goes to the punchiest song off the album, in terms of both production and focus, “Like That”, with Kendrick Lamar. “Like That” starts off with a ridiculous synth line which instantly hooks you into the song without even giving you a chance to breathe. As the bombastic intro fades into one of the best beats of the album, it’s clear that Metro is basically showing off with “Like That”, running victory laps around other producers. And Future does the beat justice, with (in my opinion) his best verse of the album.

But despite this, it was Kendrick Lamar’s surprise feature which stole the show of “Like That”, and got everyone talking about it. As one of the most highly acclaimed rappers of all time, Kendrick Lamar rarely features on other rappers’ songs nowadays, making his unannounced feature a shock to many. Sawyer McLauglin, long time Future and Kendrick Lamar fan, said “I remember sitting in the gym, about to start my set, and all of a sudden I hear Kendrick Lamar’s voice come on and I do a double take.” 

The focus of Kendrick’s verse was also surprising. For most of it he appeared to take shots at fellow rappers Drake and J Cole, setting off conversations all over the internet. Of the reactions, McLaughlin said, “At first I was like ‘it’s not that big a deal’, and then I go to Youtube the next day and every video on my recommended is speaking about this diss, and I think ‘wow maybe this is a big deal.’” 

Throughout the verse Kendrick Lamar, typically a rapper who avoids beefs with other rappers, attacks both Drake and J Cole. The verse seems to be a response to Drake and J Cole’s song “ For All the Dogs” on Drake’s eponymous 2023 album, where J Cole respectfully presented him, Drake, and Kendrick as a hip-hop “big three”. But Kendrick rejects this comparison, saying “Mother**** the big three, ***** it’s just big me”. In this way, Kendrick acts like it’s insulting to even compare him to Drake and J Cole, because he is in a league of his own. 

The diss came out of nowhere, but is very well received by many. As hip-hop fans eagerly await a response from either J Cole or Drake (or both, ideally), it remains to be seen just how well “We Don’t Trust You” will age. However, initial ratings from Metacritic and aggregator website RateYourMusic indicated generally favorable reviews. Overall, “We Don’t Trust You” is a well made album which should be on the list for any Future or Metro fan, and will hopefully continue to age well.