Despite first debuting commercially over 12 years ago, Future remains more prominent and dominant in the rap sphere than ever, reaching unprecedented heights this year alone. Future’s success only continues with “MIXTAPE PLUTO,” the rapper’s first mixtape in eight years and one that serves as a celebration of his past and current accomplishments.

As “MIXTAPE PLUTO” marks Future’s third number-one album in six months on the Billboard 200, a record only the Beatles can match, Future continues to scorch the music landscape at an unmatched rate. In March, Future collaborated with producer Metro Boomin first on “We Don’t Trust You,” a record featuring blazing rap-trap singles such as “Like That” featuring Kendrick Lamar. He followed this up with a more R&B and pop-rap-focused sequel, “We Still Don’t Trust You,” in April. However, “MIXTAPE PLUTO” works as a return to Future’s rap roots, with the artist constructing his first solo mixtape since 2016’s “Purple Reign.” 

“MIXTAPE PLUTO” proves to be a gritty yet illustrious project in which Future reunites with previous collaborators, producers Southside and Wheezy, for 17 tracks that encompass Future’s roots in Atlanta. From the cover art alone, which features “The Dungeon,” a home in which Atlanta rap icons such as OutKast recorded their early records, it’s clear that Future is embracing his past, attempting to recapture the nostalgic energy of his classic mixtapes, 2014’s “Monster” and 2015’s “56 Nights.”

In “MIXTAPE PLUTO,” Future hones in on a dense trap-infused sound that sways between self-indulgent lyricism, periods of introspection and melodic cathartics. Yet Future’s passion and delivery depreciate after the first tracks, with track length and effective quality decreasing steadily as the mixtape goes on. With numerous songs under the two-minute mark, many of the tracks in the latter half of the mixtape feel closer to half-baked demos than fleshed-out songs. 

Future begins “MIXTAPE PLUTO” with “TEFLON DON,” a Southside-assisted track featuring soul samples and booming trap production that sees Future declaring himself having “Beat the first case like John Gotti” in a moment that serves as his return to the rap throne. The momentum only continues with the following track, “LIL DEMON,” on which Future’s lyricism thins, repeating, “Yeah, I’m trappin, yeah, I’m trappin’, yeah, I’m still trappin’ / (Yessirski).” Still, the song has an infectious flow that is only amplified by Southside’s hard-hitting instrumentals. The mixtape further peaks on the following tracks, “SKI” and “READY TO COOK UP.” The latter, in particular, is a highlight of the mixtape, forming a haunting and intoxicating atmosphere in lines like “Can’t say too much on these tracks ’cause I’m with gravediggers / (Yeah, yeah),” as Future alludes to a return to his indulgent and drug-reliant past lifestyle. 

While these opening songs on “MIXTAPE PLUTO” appear as aggressive as Future’s past mixtapes, the next track, “PLUTOSKI,” offers booming production from Wheezy which ultimately fails in execution due to Future’s tired delivery. In the chorus, on which he nearly incoherently mumbles “Trappin’ out the trap, oh yeah (yeah, yeah),” Future seems to lack the focus necessary to create a hard-hitting trap sound. While the quality of the mixtape picks up with “TOO FAST” and “OCEAN,” on which Future takes a more introspective route, the rest of “MIXTAPE PLUTO” never quite reaches the same stride as the opening tracks. Instead, on songs such as “MJ,” Future presents a seemingly incomplete concept record that features the rapper raspily muttering about indulging with women for just over a minute. 

A similar, truncated track length appears on “SOUTH OF FRANCE,” in which a spacy instrumental ebbs and flows promisingly as Future recalls his past and relishes in his current successes. Yet at only one minute and 48 seconds long, the song fails to live up to its potential. The tracklist sees another bright spot with “SURFING A TSUNAMI,” but the following three tracks, which each clock in at under a minute long, continue the trend of unfinished concepts. Nevertheless, one of the closing tracks, “LOST MY DOG,” allows Future to express more emotion as he grieves over the death of a close friend after a fentanyl overdose.

Production and atmosphere remain two essential elements of Future’s work. In the case of “MIXTAPE PLUTO,” these factors remain inconsistent between highs that invest in dark trap-rap and melodic introspection and lows that could easily be throwaways from any of the past five years of Future’s solo records. While “MIXTAPE PLUTO” attempts to follow up on Future’s critically acclaimed mixtape run, Future does not quite offer the same aggressive, Southern-hip-hop-infused rap he rose to stardom through in the mid-2010s, but instead presents a more subdued version of himself across the mixtape.

“MIXTAPE PLUTO” serves as an exciting victory lap for Future that celebrates his numerous achievements throughout 2024, but it ultimately does not quite reach up to the same bar that Future set for himself with his collaborations with Metro Boomin earlier this year.