Future Brown is the self-titled debut studio album by American electronic music supergroup Future Brown, consisting of Fatima Al Qadiri, J-Cush, and members of the duo Nguzunguzu (Asma Maroof and Daniel Pineda). Future Brown is an electronica album fusing together genres from a variety of different cultures and backgrounds. It features several rappers and musicians also associated with from a diverse set of music scenes such as Kelela, Tink, Riko Dan, Maluca, Shawnna, 3D Na'Tee, Tim Vocals, and Ruff Sqwad members Dirty Danger, Prince Rapid, and Roachee.
Released by Warp Records in February 2015, Future Brown received generally positive critical reviews and landed on the year-end lists of publications such as PopMatters, Exclaim!, and Mixmag. However, the LP's critical reception also garnered controversy, as Future Brown lambasted some reviewers for suggesting that the group intended to have art school-level concepts behind the album.
Background Fatima Al Qadiri and Asma Maroof were the first to notice that they, Daniel Pineda, and Jamie Imanian-Friedman (J-Cush) had all been working together on various solo projects.Sherburne, Philip (October 2, 2014). "Future Brown". Pitchfork. Retrieved March 15, 2018. Qadiri and Maroof had thought about working together in person for a year after meeting on the internet, "and me and Jamie had just hatched the idea to start working together, so we just had a very quick conversation about why is this happening, and that we should all work together," explained Qadiri. Future Brown started sketching songs in early 2013 in a studio in New York City. Uno Recordings leader Charles Damga was responsible for investing both a studio pace and vocal features for Future Brown. 90% of the songs were done by the group together in person,Saxelby, Ruth (February 7, 2014). "Future Brown, the underground dance supergroup". The Guardian. Retrieved March 15, 2018. Qadiri explaining that "only minor editing has been done over the internet or remotely." Only roughly half of the album's featured guests recorded in the studio.Brydon, Grant (February 2015). "Exclusive Interview: Future Brown – “At the end of the day this is kind of a fan project." . RWD. Retrieved March 15, 2018. These included American rapper Tink, who appears on two tracks on the album, "Room 302" and "Wanna Party," and had vocals for both of the tracks be tracked in Future Brown's studio all in around two hours.
Composition Future Brown employs what The Fader described as "raucous club rhythms, graceful melodies, icy synths, and enchanting percussive licks" that "call out to different corners of the planet."Saxelby, Ruth (December 4, 2014). "Future Brown Makes Music For The World We Actually Live In". The Fader. Retrieved March 10, 2018. The LP contains many signature aspects of the works of Qadiri and Nguzunguzu, including "hushed synthesizers, tropical percussion inflated with reverb and a sense of space that leaves the spotlight on the guest artists," wrote Andrew Ryce. As Crack Magazine categorized Future Brown, the group follows a hybrid of styles that "exists through a constant traffic of ideas but arrives [on the album] in the fashion that all things do in the online age: compressed, compact and finite. The nucleus of the album is a hyperreal, glossy presentation of hybridised club sounds in various contemporary mutations."Harrison, Duncan. "Future Brown Album Review". Crack Magazine. Retrieved March 13, 2018.
Labeled by Colin Fitzgerald as "richly textured and cleanly mixed," the record has what some critics described as a futuristic science fiction sound that is "counterpoint[ed]" by its lyrical content about partying, Killian Fox of The Observer wrote. Critic Calum Slingerland wrote that the record's clean sounds and minimal arrangements were the most similar to those on Qadiri's debut full-length album Asiatisch (2014).Slingerland, Calum (February 24, 2015). "Future Brown Future Brown". Exclaim!. Retrieved March 13, 2018. A HipHopDX review by Bryan Hahn analyzed the music having a "cold, metallic vibe" where "most of the sounds used would be nearly impossible to recreate with acoustic instruments, giving you a feeling of distant familiarity at best."
In addition to lyrics about sex and getting drunk usual for party music, Future Brown also deals with serious subject matter. "Asbestos" is a song about racism, where grime rapper Dirty Danger says that because his "jeans low and my face too black," he's unable to appear on The X Factor. "No Apology" deals with female empowerment, while on "Vernáculo," Maluca raps about resistance against the upper class in terms of language, where she rhymes the Spanish word culo with vernáculo.
The music follows a European electronicaDeVille, Chris (February 27, 2015). "Controversy Over Future Brown Criticism More Interesting Than Future Brown’s Album". Stereogum. Retrieved March 11, 2018. fusion of multiple genres from a variety of nations and cultural backgrounds, including grime, kuduro, dancehall, reggaeton, drill, bop, footwork, industrial noise, bass, and cumbia. The lyrics feature lines in languages such as English, Spanish, and Japanese as well as various regional dialects and accents such as American, British, and Jamaican. The record's set of collaborators include reggaeton acts and rappers mostly from Chicago and London. This has led multiple reviews to mislabel the LP as a pro-cultural-diversity album (see controversy section).
Release and promotion On August 2, 2013, the website of Complex magazine premiered Future Brown's first single, "Wanna Party,"Ortiz, Edwin (August 2, 2013). "Premiere: Future Brown f/ Tink "Wanna Party"". Complex. Retrieved March 11, 2018. which landed at number 26 on a list by Fact magazine of the best tracks of 2013."The 100 Best Tracks of 2013". Fact. December 16, 2013. Retrieved March 11, 2018. A remix of "Wanna Party" featuring 3D Na'Tee, Future Brown's first release for Warp Records, was distributed on September 16, 2014 via streaming and issued to digital and vinyl formats on November 3."Future Brown ready Warp debut, enlist rapper 3D Na’Tee for ‘Wanna Party’ remix". Fact. Retrieved March 11, 2018. Future Brown wanted to sign with Warp because of the album's big production budget.Eede, Christian (March 4, 2015). "Boundary-Free Work: Future Brown Interviewed". The Quietus. Retrieved March 15, 2018. Imanian-Friedman said in an interview, "Warp were very experienced: they understood what we were trying to do and weren't trying to alter our vision in the slightest, which is really just what we were looking for."
The video for "Vernáculo" was first presented at the 2014 Art Basel Miami Beach event held by Pérez Art Museum Miami, which lasted from December 4 to December 5, 2014,"Future Brown: Vernáculo featuring Maluca". Pérez Art Museum Miami. Retrieved March 11, 2018. and then released online on December 17, 2014.Rettig, James (December 17, 2014). "Future Brown – “Vernáculo” (Feat. Maluca) Video". Stereogum. Retrieved March 11, 2018. Described by the museum's official website as an "exercise in capitalist surrealism," the video "appropriate[s]" methods of advertising used by companies such as L’Oreal and Revlon as a way to commentate on fake standards set by beauty product commercials.Cliff, Aimee (February 16, 2015). "Five things you should know about Future Brown". Red Bull Music Academy. Retrieved March 11, 2018. Future Brown was also promoted with two other pre-album track releases, "Talkin Bandz" on December 4, 2014,Fitzmaurice, Larry (December 4, 2014). "Future Brown Announce Debut LP, Share “Talkin Bandz”". The Fader. Retrieved March 10, 2018. and "Room 302" January 8, 2015.Golden, Zara (January 8, 2015). "Future Brown And Tink Enter “Room 302”". The Fader. Retrieved March 10, 2018. NPR Music premiered Future Brown via streaming on February 15, 2018 before Warp released it to other formats on February 23, 2015.
Critical reception
Hahn placed a majority of the praise on Future Brown's dynamic and unique production. He wrote that it contained "strange, new sounds" that "challenge what perceptions you may have had of the vocalists," and each instrumental is "constantly evolving, swelling and shrinking, to complement the vocalists’ acoustics. [...] Not only do they know that less is more, they know when to execute it." He also complemented how diverse the set of featured vocalists were, noting that they gave the album the feel of "a personal mixtape that four friends put together for your own enjoyment."Hahn, Bryan (March 2, 2015). "Future Brown – Future Brown". HipHopDX. Retrieved March 13, 2018. Now magazine favorably compared Future Brown to the mixtape Cut 4 Me (2013) by Kelela (who also features on Future Brown) for its combination of elements of experimental and pop music: "Future Brown unabashedly push the needle forward on stark "post-Timberland" production values by ceding the floor to a worldwide underground of vocalists [...] whose hooks, melodies and attitude give the music a familiar shape."Ritchie, Kevin (February 18, 2015). "Future Brown". Now. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
The 405 praised Future Brown for "highlight[ing]" the LP's featured artists of many different genres "rather than attempting to sand down everything to find common ground."Lyons, Patrick (February 19, 2015). "Future Brown – Future Brown" . The 405. Retrieved March 14, 2018. Slingerland wrote that the album's musical variety "gives the record's impressive roster of vocalists plenty of space to work with, ranging from the smoothest of soul singers to the sharpest emcees," also writing that "the diversity of Future Brown never once feels overwhelming, making the trip through these sounds from a futuristic dance floor satisfying throughout." Irish critic Jim Carroll described it as "an album full of smart ideas, genre hopscotching and next- level brainstorming. The constant ducking and diving between hip-hop, dancehall, grime, r’n’b and electronica results in an imaginative rush of sound."Carroll, Jim (March 7, 2015). "Future Brown: Future Brown". The Irish Times. Retrieved March 14, 2018. Spin described it as "a collection with the thinnest of underlying threads to keep things from falling apart, each track standing completely apart from the rest."
Ryce wrote that the "group's individual backgrounds blend together like watercolour paints, creating a consistent, adaptable style that works well across such a wide spectrum of sounds." He also found Future Brown superior to most records that are heavy on collaborations in that "the group take the time to understand and mold to the artists they're working with." Colin Fitzgerald stated in his review of the album, "Unlike most supergroups of years past, Future Brown fulfill all the criteria for success: originality, intellectual and commercial value, and a healthy predilection for the familiar." He noted that the record's wide range of stylings and sounds "easily coalesce, and the record feels expansive and worldly as a result." However, he also noted that a few of the tracks were "sterile and shallow" because they "reveal how thin Future Brown’s methodology actually is when the novel elements don’t come together."