KM - Star

If you don’t want to burn out your retinas, now would be a good time to grab some shades – or a welder’s mask. As the up-and-coming emcee explains on new mixtape leak (and Booth debut) Star, Tha Future plans on shining so brightly that unwary bystanders risk being blinded. Everyone got their protective eyewear on? Good. This ambitious jam finds frequent Wiz Khalifa collaborator Johnny Juliano fortifying a sample from UK pop group Take That’s ‘07 single, Rule the World, with a stuttering percussion rhythm, booming bass and club-ready synth accents. Future matches the densely-packed instrumental with two verses’ worth of bracing motivational rhymes, complete with some appropriately out-of-this-world braggadocio: “I burn so bright in here, even the darkest nights is like daylight in here.” Future clearly has the passion to succeed, but is he truly destined for superstardom? We’ll be able to get a better idea early this March, when the rapper’s Ready to Launch v1.0 mixtape hits the ‘net.