Future Brown are four friends between New York and Los Angeles who share a profound fondness for R&B. The producers Fatima Al Qadiri and J-Cush from the label Lit City Trax and the duo Asma Maroof and Daniel Pineda alias Nguzunguzu have combined their strengths under the name of Future Brown in order to sketch out a new idea of globalized black music. In this case, “globalized” means as much as the quartet working its way through the latest developments of bass- and club-music from Europe, Africa, South-America and the USA. They avoid the potential dangers of schoolmasterly docility by coming forward with a slim and tidy sound, which almost seems homogenous at the first listen, and which gives the project its cool and lascivious identity. It prevents Future Brown, who mostly deliver track-fundaments for their various guest-singers from the USA and England, from getting lost in a collective kind of randomness. Instead, they compact and concentrate their numerous influences into well-dosed beat patterns, shy bass lines and spare electronic additions. Speaking of electronic additions: In many of the eleven tracks, Autotune is a natural obligation, and those who quarrel with the vocal pimp-tool should consider themselves warned. And yet, this distinguished artificiality is a central component to Future Brown’s concept. After all, there’re not many musicians who pull it off as naturally and accomplished as Future Brown do
