Metro Boomin closed out 2022 with his acclaimed album HEROES & VILLAINS arriving in December. His Atlanta colleague Future released his own album, I NEVER LIKED YOU, in April 2022. The two artists have been frequent collaborators in the past, though prior to their joining forces late last year, it had been a minute since fans heard them together.
It looks like they won’t have to wait much longer. In a new interview with Flaunt Magazine published Monday (March 6), the “Ric Flair Drip” producer cleared up the time frame for his and Future’s potential project. When asked if audiences can expect a collab between the two this year, he responded emphatically. “Definitely. I would bet on it,” he said. “I would definitely bet on it.”
The confirmation that the two are cooking something up comes after Future brought Metro on stage at his concert at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena in January. “Oh, that was fire,” he reminisced. “You know, Pluto, that’s my brother. We’ve been at it for a long time. This whole superhero moment, it’s like the beginning of our phase two.” That same month, Future hinted that they were working together on delivering “the album of the year” on his Instagram Stories.
The duo linked up for the first time in five years on HEROES & VILLAINS with songs like “Too Many Nights” and “Lock On Me.” In the mid-2010s, Metro was responsible for some of Future’s biggest hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including “Mask Off,” “Jumpman,” “Thought It Was a Drought,” “Digital Dash,” “Low Life,” “Freak H**,” and “Big Rings.”
As for why he was absent from I NEVER LIKED YOU, Metro explained that he wanted to save his heat with Future for a full-length LP.
“[Future] actually finished most of the album at my studio in LA,” he told Ebro Darden ahead of HEROES & VILLAINS‘ release. “That’s my brother, but we’re working on some things. At first, we were going to put a couple of songs with me and him on the album, but we had took them off because I had talked to him.”
“I was like, ‘Look, the last time anybody’s really heard a song from me and you was ‘Mask Off.’ So instead of us randomly throwing one or two songs we did on here, we got to wait and just give them a joint,'” he told the rapper. Future, for his part, signaled last month that he’s back in “album mode.”