Future — Monster

Sixty seconds of ad-libs and bass rumble setting the tone with no verses or hooks. Standard mixtape opening that establishes mood but adds nothing substantial.

Metro Boomin's two-note synth spiral and trapdoor 808s set the template immediately: minimal, hypnotic, oppressive. Future's flow is conversational and slurred, bending syllables until they lose their edges, talking about racks in the closet and forgetting faces between doses. The hook is barely a hook, just Future repeating the word "radical" until it stops meaning anything and becomes pure rhythm. The production does the heavy lifting, creating a sense of dread that the lyrics only gesture toward. Strong opener that establishes the sound without wasting time on exposition.

The title track and the tape's aesthetic anchor: Metro Boomin and Southside layer eerie keys over 808s so heavy they feel like they are pulling you underground. Future's melody here is more aggressive than on "Radical," leaning into the monstrosity rather than the numbness, but the emotional core is the same: wealth and excess used as anesthesia. The hook—"I'm a monster in these streets, it don't matter"—is simple and brutal, and Future delivers it with enough conviction to make it stick. The beat never relents, never gives you space to breathe, and that suffocating quality is exactly the point. One of the tape's essential tracks.

A skit featuring DJ Esco with no music, just talk and ad-libs. Pure filler.

Southside and DJ Spinz build a hard, uptempo beat that feels like a brief return to traditional club trap after the first two songs' bleakness. Future's hook about running through money is catchy and direct, but the track feels like an outlier on a tape that is otherwise committed to introspection. The energy is higher here than almost anywhere else on Monster, which makes it memorable but also slightly out of place. Solid on its own terms, but it breaks the mood the tape is trying to sustain, which is probably why it got pulled for the streaming reissue and moved to DS2 instead.

The tape's first fully vulnerable moment, and one of Future's best songs. Nard & B slow the tempo way down and give Future five minutes to work through the wreckage of a relationship he clearly has not processed. The hook is just Future stretching the phrase "throw it away" across an entire measure, bending the syllables until the melody carries all the emotional weight the lyrics only sketch. He is direct here in ways he avoids elsewhere, naming the pain instead of drowning it, and the specificity makes it cut deeper: talking about how he thought she was different, how he gave her everything, how he still checks his phone hoping she will call. The production is lush and melancholic, giving him room to let the melody drift without losing the thread. Essential.

Lil Wayne shows up for the tape's only guest verse and sounds locked in, matching Future's energy without trying to outshine him. Southside and TM88 build a beat that rattles and clatters, 808s hitting like automatic weapons, and both rappers use the chaos to flex hard: money, women, drugs, violence, all delivered with the casual menace that makes trap work. Wayne's verse is sharp and stays on theme; Future's hook is minimal and hypnotic. The track is harder and more aggressive than most of Monster, which gives the tape a brief shot of adrenaline before it sinks back into numbness. Strong collaboration.

Will-A-Fool's production is solid but unremarkable, and Future's street talk here—sliding through with savages, keeping the tool close, running the city—feels more like autopilot than genuine menace. The hook is repetitive without the melodic pull that makes repetition work elsewhere on the tape. Competent trap song that does not add much.

Nard & B give Future another slow, moody beat with mournful keys, and he uses it to talk about loyalty, paranoia, and keeping his circle tight. The 2Pac comparison is loose—more about the idea of being untouchable and surrounded by enemies than any specific parallel—but the mood fits the tape's larger themes of isolation despite wealth. The hook is decent, the verses are solid, but the track does not offer much that "Throw Away" has not already done better. It is fine, but it is also filler in a stretch where the tape needs more differentiation.

DJ Plugg, Bobby Kritical, and 30 Roc build a mid-tempo beat with ominous keys, and Future delivers verses about street life and survival that are competent but formulaic. The hook does not have the melodic pull to lift the track, and by this point in the tape the lack of dynamic range starts to feel like a problem. Solid enough to not skip, not distinctive enough to remember.

Metro Boomin, Southside, and TM88 collaborate on a beat that is harder and more layered than most of the tape, and Future uses it to flex on money and status. The hook is catchy in a traditional trap sense, and the verses are sharper than the last few tracks, but the song still feels like it is retreading ground the tape has already covered. It is a good track in isolation; in the context of Monster's back half, it is just more of the same when the tape needs to shift gears.

Southside strips the production down to almost nothing: minimal synths, heavy bass, and Future talking about his come-up and his disbelief at where he has landed. The mood is contemplative without being sad, and the brevity works in its favor. At two and a half minutes, it does not overstay, and it gives the tape a moment to breathe before the final stretch.

Metro Boomin builds a beat around what sounds like a slowed music box, creating a lullaby that feels sinister rather than soothing. Future's melody here is more subdued, almost whispered, and the track has an eerie, hypnotic quality that stands out even on a tape full of hypnotic tracks. It is brief, strange, and memorable, one of the tape's most distinctive production moments.

DJ Spinz and TM88 give Future a mid-tempo beat with sharp hi-hats and a lurching bass line, and he uses it to flex on haters and celebrate his resilience. The hook is simple and effective, the verses are confident without being obnoxious, and the track works as a penultimate statement before the tape's finale. Not essential, but it serves its purpose in the sequencing.

Metro Boomin and DJ Plugg build a beat that feels like a darker, slower version of "Radical," and Future delivers one last round of flexing before the tape's emotional conclusion. The track is solid but unremarkable, and its main function is to set up "Codeine Crazy" by giving you one more dose of the tape's core sound before pulling the rug out.

TM88 builds a beat around mournful, cinematic keys and lets it stretch across five minutes, and Future uses every second to confess everything the rest of the tape has been circling around. He is more direct here than anywhere else on Monster, naming the addiction and the desperation without metaphor: pouring codeine every day, trying to drown the pain, surrounded by luxury and still feeling empty. The song does not have a traditional hook; instead, Future repeats the phrase "codeine crazy" at intervals, letting his melody drift and wander between verses, bending syllables until they sound like sighs. The production never rushes him, never tries to impose structure, just gives him space to work through it in real time. It is the emotional center of the tape, the reason the rest of Monster exists, and one of the best songs Future has ever recorded. Placing it last was the only choice that made sense; it earns its length and its explicitness by arriving after you have already spent fifty minutes inside Future's headspace, and it works as both a confession and a closing argument. Essential.