The long awaited release of platinum certified duo Metro Boomin and Future’s album, “We Don’t Trust You,” has left the rap world aswirl with excitement. The title of the album is derived from one of Metro’s many producer tags — “If Young Metro don’t trust you I’m gon’ shoot you,” which happens to be a lyric from a Future song. The duo’s last collaboration before this album was nine times platinum “Mask Off,” released in 2017. Hence, a whole album with Future’s trap style vocals and Metro’s ingenious production was expected to be the rap album of the year if it had any semblance to their previous collaborations. 

Future, also known by the nicknames of HNDRXX or Pluto, is currently one of the most popular rappers in the game, and perhaps the best in the ‘trap’ subcategory of rap. Known for his characteristic mumble rap style, the subjects of his songs are mostly psychedelic, drug induced fantasies, sexual encounters with women or — like many other rappers — handling fame. An ode to his versatility and a personal favorite of his tracks, “Solo,” talks of him needing to let go of someone important. This song’s quasi-emotional lyrics are paired with a beat that would make it impossible to guess that it was a breakup song, aimed at his ex-fiancee Ciara. Ultimately, no one would classify Future as a lyrical rapper, but he modernizes the charm of trap music, a feat only previously accomplished by the likes of Lil Wayne and Jeezy, making a sound so unique it can not be duplicated. 

A relatively newer character in the world of rap, Metro Boomin has become to modern rap what Timbaland was to ‘90s/2000s R&B. Metro has become an esteemed producer that has written a lengthy list of singles in addition to completing a number of joint albums with some of the leading names of modern rap. Just earlier this year, he released a record breaking collaboration with the British-born, Atlanta-raised 21 Savage by the name of “The American Dream.” Perhaps the most notable project on his discography, though, is the Grammy-nominated “Heroes and Villains,” bejeweled with features by the likes of The Weeknd, Don Toliver, Travis Scott and Future. Against a backtrack of his masterful production, it became his third album to top the Billboard 200 chart. It is also important to note that Metro has produced a vast array of songs for Drake, the Canadian rap giant that seems to be the subject of a brutal diss on one of the tracks on “We Don’t Trust You.”

The sixth track on Metro and Future’s long awaited joint album seems to be the one on people’s minds (generating 7.3 million Spotify streams in a day — the most for a rap song this year). The enormous number of streams, though, are not to any credit of either of these rap stars, but to Kendrick Lamar’s verse on which he dropped perhaps the most explicit diss of his entire career. His disses at Drake and J. Cole are not the first shots in a new feud, rather just the latest edition in a long standing Cold War between the rap greats. The first shot was fired on Lamar’s verse in Big Sean’s “Control” in 2013, in which he name drops a series of rappers including both “Jermaine Cole” and Drake. This verse broke away from years of rappers being limited to “sneak disses” and transported us back to when hip-hop stars were not afraid to launch insults at each other using whole government names. From the year 2013 to present, there have been a series of subliminal insults embedded in the lyrics of both artists. Drake threw shots in his 2013 album “Nothing Was the Same” about the fact that Lamar’s “goodkid, m.A.A.dcity” took a year to reach platinum whereas he “looked at his wrist and it’s already platinum.” Lamar’s feature on “We Don’t Trust You” is the first direct hit at the Canadian rapper since the initiation of these tensions a decade earlier. 

Unlike Lamar, Future has worked with Drake multiple times in recents years with their most recent collaboration on Future’s 2022 album “I NEVER LIKED YOU.” That being said, their relationship seems to have gotten a little icy in the past year or so, with the track on Drake’s “For All the Dogs” by the name of “What Would Pluto Do?” being allegedly directed at the trap star. Pluto, as aforementioned, is one of Future’s aliases. The lyrics of the song seem to paint Drake as someone who is inexperienced when it comes to talking to women and thinks to himself “What would Pluto do?” Without a Future feature this song just seems to be talking about Pluto’s infamous and often controversial love life behind his back. 

Though he has also partnered with Drake on multiple songs, soon after the release of the album, Metro sent out a tweet with the statement “once you pick a side stay there… #WEDONTTRUSTYOU,” seemingly inciting further tensions.

Many seem to be excited at the prospects of a new hip hop rivalry, reminiscent of those between Nas and Jay-Z or the famed East Coast-West Coast beef that rocked the rap world for well over a decade. 

I guess we’re all just wondering now if Drake will respond with a diss track directed at K Dot, much like how he did to Meek Mill in 2015. But will he be able to top “Like That?” 

Is real hip-hop finally back?