Metro Boomin, one of the most popular and famous producers in the hip-hop scene today, has released his second collaboration album with trap sensation Future called “WE STILL DON’T TRUST YOU”.
A prolific producer in the hip-hop scene, Metro Boomin has worked with every big modern rap star you can name. From mainstream rap icons like 21 Savage and Drake, to more trap inspired singers like Travis Scott and Young Thug. You can even find him producing for figures like Kanye West and The Weeknd, in other words, he’s worked with basically every big name in the industry.
His newest album is his second collaboration album with Future, someone who is considered to be one of the most influential figures in modern hip-hop for how popular his trap sound has become within the industry. As Metro Boomin specializes in trap production, this project seems like a match made in heaven, and this isn’t the first time they’ve collaborated either as they both worked alongside each other during the making of the soundtrack for the film “Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse” (2023) and of course for the prequel to this album, “WE DON’T TRUST YOU” (2024) which dropped three weeks before this record came out. Unfortunately, this record doesn’t really live up to the hype and peaks of its predecessor.
General Info And Themes:
“WE STILL DON’T TRUST YOU” is the second of two collabs between Metro and Future (the prequel being “WE DON’T TRUST YOU”). The album is an hour and a half long with a total of 25 songs split across two discs (Side A and Side B). The first side contains the majority of the material with 18 tracks in total, while the second side contains the remaining seven tracks. This track list is, in my opinion, way too long, and makes the album just feel bloated and hard to listen to at times.
Notably, the last record in the duology was focused primarily as a diss towards Drake, who was suspected to have a secret beef with Metro Boomin for years now, with the previous record only confirming the theories. Most infamously, the song “Like That” (which was by far the most popular song off of that project) featured a very notable diss verse by the featured Kendrick Lamar, which was targeted directly towards Drake and J Cole. This was huge news within the hip-hop scene as this was basically the beginning of a feud between the 3 biggest names in hip-hop today which has now spiraled into what many fans have dubbed a “Hip Hop Civil War”. This record is similar to the first as it once again continues the theme of being against Drake (and to a more minor extent J Cole) which I will discuss later.
Some major themes of the album center around the idea of loyalty and trust (similarly like the last album) and a lot of the lyrics on this album are centered around this theme. There are also heavy themes of nightlife, partying, and love.
Production & Instrumentation:
This album wasn’t filled with trap bangers as I originally thought it would be. The first album in this duology had a heavy emphasis on these dark sounding yet very inspired trap beats that fit along with Future’s rap mannerisms and tones. However, this album ventures outside of Future’s typical comfort zone, taking on a more R&B turn, which makes it feel more dreamlike. This is very noticeable on the first disc however the second disc focuses more on Metro’s signature trap style production. Another detail that should be mentioned is that a lot of the songs blend together on this album in terms of general sound (especially on the first disc). This isn’t really a positive as most songs feel like they are the same and there is very little which distinguishes songs apart. I’m not really sure if the same could be said for the previous record, as those songs felt like they could be told apart heavily from one another. Overall, the instrumentation and production is very soft sounding and more melodic and R&B based and really lacks a lot of that trap punch you would expect from a Future or Metro project.
Stand Out Songs:
Some stand out songs I like on this project include: “We Still Don’t Trust You”, “All To Myself”, “Nights Like This”, and “Beat This”. These songs were very chill but had an interesting chord progression/sample that were used throughout that made them fun to listen to while also sounding dark or mysterious at the same time which is more similar to Metro’s usual production approach. In addition, these songs were rhythmic and clean overall and they were some of my favorite off of this record specifically. There were some moments where the songs sounded somewhat generic but overall I enjoyed them personally and again they’re my favorite songs from this project.
Features and Drama:
This album features The Weeknd (who is already a very frequent collaborator with Metro Boomin) which many people thought was very interesting (me included). The reason why is because as previously discussed this album seemingly continues the previous album’s themes of being against Drake and the multiple appearances of The Weeknd on this album only appears to confirm this belief. The Weeknd and Drake, despite being two giant Canadian pop stars, have historically not gotten along well. It started when Drake tried to sign The Weeknd to his record label, OVO, which The Weeknd refused due to the OVO label not helping out the artists it represents and consistently preventing their growth to an extent. Ever since then, they have not been on good terms. The Weeknd subtly disses Drake about this fact on “All to Myself” with the line “I thank God that I never signed my life away” and also disses him later in the same song by saying “They shooters makin’ TikToks, got us laughing in the lambo,” which could be a jab implying Drake (or his fellow OVO artists) makes “TikTok music”. Drama aside, The Weeknd is certainly a highlight on the album as it really is a pleasure to listen to his singing on the R&B style beats although I will admit he certainly has his corny lines here and there and he certainly isn’t performing at his peak as well.
Meanwhile, another featuring artist was a surprise to many and that was J Cole being featured on the last song on Side A of the record. After all, J Cole had famously been dissed on “WE DON’T TRUST YOU” (as stated earlier), so he was basically the last person anyone expected to appear on this album. It was later found out, however, that J Cole’s lines were recorded before the infamous Kendrick Lamar diss dropped which partly explained his appearance. In addition, his appearance was made after he dropped a diss track towards Kendrick Lamar and then promptly redacted and apologized for it days later, so it was clear J Cole didn’t have bad blood either way. I thought that J Cole’s appearance was a fun addition and added some needed spice to the somewhat bland run time of the record, I would say he brought a chill energy to the song he was on.
In addition, A$AP Rocky, who previously collab0rated with Metro for the main credit song of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (2023), makes an appearance on Side B. His feature on the song “Show Of Hands” is pretty decent and is also very fun to listen to. Rocky also goes out of his way to diss Drake by saying “N****s in they feelings over women, what, you hurt or somethin’?” which is likely referring to Rihanna, who Rocky recently had a child with, and also who previously dated Drake on and off from 2009 to 2016. Overall, I thought Rocky’s feature was a solid inclusion on the album and the sneak disses made it more interesting to listen to.
Finally, Ty Dolla $ign makes a minor appearance which I thought was unexpected considering he is currently working on his collab album with Kanye West, “VULTURES 2” at the moment. His parts were good and they really added a solid R&B rhythm and style to the songs he was on.
Overall: I give this album a decent 5 out of 10. Not a lot of banging trap hits in this record and this isn’t everything you could want from a Future and Metro Boomin album. I don’t think this is as good as his last project with Future and by a significant margin too and for that reason, it was quite a disappointment. If you’re looking for a more R&B based album with Future and The Weeknd, I suppose this would be it but it really doesn’t appeal to me personally. The record is overly bloated with songs that could’ve been cut or improved and this record needed more time in the oven. The previous record was way better and I would recommend that, instead.
