Atlanta rap superstar Future is bringing back the classics. Many of his older mixtapes aren’t currently on streaming services, but in the last few weeks he’s doing something about it. Last night, he put up the 2016 tape Purple Reign on all platforms.
Back To The Future
Produced by the popular Metro Boomin and 808Mafia hit-maker DJ Esco, the mixtape features hit songs like “Perkys Calling,” “Hater S**t,” and “Run Up.”
For the third consecutive week, the world’s preeminent trap star will liberate another piece of his epic mid-2010s run. Future’s Purple Reign mixtape has arrived on all DSPs. Purple Reign, released in January 2016, joined two of Future’s most trusted confidantes, DJ Esco and Metro Boomin, as the executive producers of the project’s 13 tracks. Production came from Metro Boomin, Zaytoven, Southside and more, combining the producers that handled much of the production from the Monster-Beast Mode-56 Nights trilogy.
Another Classic Dropped Last Week
A few days ago, Esco and Future’s 56 Nights tape was put on all platforms as well. It features classics like “56 Nights” itself, “March Madness,” and “Never Gon Lose.”
Wait, There’s More
Earlier in the month, Future also hit every online giant with the 2015 nine-track Zaytoven-produced Beast Mode album.
Beast Mode was the second of three mixtapes (following Monster, preceding 56 Nights) that Future would release for free between October 2014 and March 2015, a run of cathartic projects aimed at shedding the glitzy pop ambiance surrounding him due to his early-decade chart successes. Where Monster excelled in reestablishing Future as the preeminent trap star of his time, Beast Mode swapped Metro Boomin and Southside’s rugged basslines for bouncier chords and viscous melodies across a much tighter tracklist. The approach was welcomed with open arms, as BM has since been streamed nearly 20 million times across free digital platforms, including Soundcloud and LiveMixtapes.
Before You Go
The project’s massive success inspired Future to take things up a notch. The Georgia native eventually put out its follow-up as a full-fledged studio effort.
Future himself would have this to say about this key period in his career, when asked about it in his subsequent Like I Never Left mini-doc. “I can’t be out [in Los Angeles], I gotta go home [to Atlanta], I gotta record, I gotta get back comfortable…” The original Beast Mode was appreciated so widely that it spawned the release of BEASTMODE 2, a sequel to Beast Mode released as a commercial mixtape in 2018. It would debut at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, setting a record as the highest-charting stream-only album ever.