Does Future Have Blood On His Hands?

His song “Mask Off” may be responsible for many deaths

I loved Atlanta rapper Future when he came out in the early 2010s. He carried a vulnerable, underdog vibe, and really focused on craft. His contributions fueled 2011’s insanely catchy “Racks,” and his 2012 proper debut Pluto is a classic, highlighted by “Turn On the Lights,” one of the most tender love songs ever put to a hip-hop beat.

But I soon fell out of love with his work. It’s not that his artistry dropped off; indeed, he became one of the most vital (and successful) artists working.

It’s just that he began glamorizing dangerous drugs in an extremely irresponsible way.

Listen, I’m no prude, and believe in free expression. But hip-hop has always had a code about drugs. Rappers once badmouthed weed, and even as chronic and ecstasy became accepted in the culture, there were still limits. Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s you never heard rappers endorsing crack cocaine, and the same holds true today with heroin and fentanyl. (Selling it, yes, but using it, no.)

Pills seemed to fall into something of a gray area. By the 2000s plenty of rappers were talking about taking them, but it wasn’t always clear what they were referring to: Ecstasy? Opioids? Benzos?*

*Sometimes it was quite clear, however; after a Redlands, California rapper faced a backlash for his moniker — Lil Xan — he started going by his middle name, Diego.

In the 2000s practically a whole generation of Houston luminaries died from lean. The promethazine-codeine cough syrup’s psychoactive virtues were extolled in countless tracks, but contributed to the deaths of Big Moe, Pimp C, and DJ Screw.

But the sizzurp problem was largely focused in Houston, and would be dwarfed by a much larger opioid problem in the coming decades — fentanyl.

As mentioned above, a rapper would never glamorize taking fentanyl. He or she would be shunned. And yet, as fentanyl began being cut into pills in the 2010s, rappers began glamorizing it inadvertently.

No one had more success doing this, or at least no one had more cultural impact, than Future. He’s rapped about all sorts of drugs, from benzos to cocaine to Adderall, but the song that most stuck in my craw was 2017’s “Mask Off.”

I admit the song is gorgeous, featuring a mid-tempo, brooding beat from world-beating St. Louis producer Metro Boomin. The verses are standard rags-to-riches brags, but they’re bookended by a haunted chorus that sounds incredibly cool:

Percocets, molly, Percocets

Percocets, molly, Percocets

Rep the set, gotta rep the set

Chase a check, never chase a bitch

I believe that chorus may have killed many kids.

I have no proof, but it’s one of the most popular songs of the past decade. According to the RIAA, it’s gone 9x platinum, and has 1.8 billion Spotify spins.

I have no proof, but its year of release 2017 was when pills — particularly Percocets — began being cut with fentanyl in a widespread way, and adolescent drug deaths began accelerating.

I’m not saying Future personally caused the spike in youth drug deaths, I’m just saying that songs like “Mask Off” helped promote the mistaken belief that Percocets were safe.

That’s fucked up! It’s possible that, at the time of the song’s recording, Future himself didn’t know that Percocets often contained fentanyl. Fair enough. But he certainly learned this information at some point, and should have made amends.

After all, Future clearly understands that drug references in his songs affect people.

Around 2018, he apologized to Juice Wrld for inspiring him to drink lean. (This wasn’t long before the epochal Chicago rapper died….apparently from Percocet pills.) After Future himself quit drinking lean, however, he kept it a secret for a time, worried about what his fans would think. Meanwhile, his Mixtape Pluto from last year has a song about losing a friend to fentanyl.

Undoubtedly there are plenty of other musical artists, across genres, who have promoted dangerous drug use and other bad behavior. Irresponsibility is the raison d'etre of youth music! I’m not advocating a revival of Tipper Gore’s Parents Music Resource Center.

But Future violated hip-hop’s code, made millions off of it, and likely gave a kid at a party the courage to swallow a pill handed to him by some local knucklehead drug dealer. Perhaps many, many kids.

At the very least Future should apologize and pull the song; at the very most he should donate the track’s profits to organizations focused on stemming the tide of youth drug deaths.

Because, even though American drugs deaths overall have leveled off, adolescent fentanyl deaths continue rising to this day.

Note: Future’s publicist notes that, at the time of the release of last year’s “Lost My Dog,” about his friend who died from fentanyl, Future donated money to anti-drug programs, as outlined here.