But Future credits Ciara with giving him balance. They’ve been together for almost two years now, and as he’s crossed into his 30s, he says that he’s a much more mature person and understands what’s expected of him as a father and soon-to-be husband.
“It makes you grow up. Certain things that you used to do, you can’t do anymore. Certain habits you had, [now] you’ve got to break ‘em quick!” he says. “It’s about maturing and going to that next level — because I’m getting married and have a new baby coming. That causes me to change and go to another level. The things that you used to do, you can’t do it anymore because of your situation. And it just goes along with getting older and knowing how to carry yourself and knowing how to maneuver through life.”
Maneuvering through life isn’t so much a problem for Future, but he admits that the sort of industry maneuvering that a successful artist must master has been sometimes difficult.
“People try to dictate the way you move and what you talk about,” Future says. “When you do interviews and how you express yourself through your videos and how you express yourself through the way you talk in your interviews. Sometimes you’ve got to sugarcoat certain questions and work around [them] because it’s politics. You don’t want to feel like you’re stepping on anyone’s toes or pissing someone off. When something is going bad, you’re just supposed to cover it up. It’s one of the rules of the industry, that’s how it goes.
“In this industry you don’t want to be blackballed and have people talking behind your back,” he adds. “I hear stories about me that I know are not true. Because of that day or that time and my attitude, people say certain things. They just prejudge you without even knowing you. They judge you off of what they hear and not what they know.
“There [are] things that go on behind the scenes for you to achieve a certain level of success, even when you have hit records. The business [has] gotta be on point,” he shares. “You have to come with the marketing and branding. It goes hand in hand with the music. You have a hit? OK, you gotta have the right branding and the right marketing plan to go along with it so that it’s able to reach the masses. You’ve [got to] have the wings for it to expand beyond your reach. If you want to go overseas, you’ve got to do the legwork — the politics.”
