Convulsions And Emotions

Future featuring Kendrick Lamar “Mask Off (Remix)”

So yeah, here’s two rappers who are nothing alike on the same track. Future mutters through the song liked a stoned zombie, and though I don’t find him particularly charismatic, that “Percocets, molly, Percocets” mantra has an undeniable gravitational pull. Maybe it’s because he sounds like he actually needs those drugs. The original “Mask Off” stays in this lane, and while it works well enough, the song is definitely improved by switching gears with the Kendrick feature. The contrast really pops – Kendrick’s arrival jolts the song out of its hazy stupor, and he packs a lot of action in a verse that lasts a little over one minute. His lines are more densely packed at the start, but that’s Kendrick-by-numbers at this point. I’m more into the climax, where he’s so in control of the beat that it stops and starts around his rhymes as though he’s willing his surroundings to bend to his will. He sounds supremely confident here, and that’s before he even gets to the bit where he says that Prince lives on through him.

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