Future talks hiding his sobriety from fans, being compared to Beyoncé: ‘I want to use my voice for good’

ABC/Randy Holmes

Ahead of the release of his forthcoming album The WIZRD, Future has been moving full speed ahead on an ambitious promo run.

During a recent sit-down with Genius, the hip-hop titan shared a more self-aware side of himself. Most notably, Future revealed that he stopped drinking lean, also known as purple drank, some time ago, but chose not to announce his sobriety to fans for one particular reason.

“I didn’t wanna tell nobody I stopped drinking lean,” Future told For the Record host Rob Markman. “Because I felt like, then they gonna be like, ‘Oh, his music changed because he stopped drinking lean. Oh, I can hear it when he changes.’”

“It just be hard when your fans so used to a certain persona, you be afraid to change,” Future added.

More recently, Future also dished during an interview with The Fader on how he feels about being compared to Beyoncé. As the 35-year-old continues to dominate the charts, much of the public discourse has been centered around how his music empowers men in much of the same vein as Queen Bey.

“I feel like Beyoncé is one of, if not the greatest, one of the greatest. And, to be compared to that is great,” Future told the publication. “But, also just I wanna be able to use my voice for a lot of good in men. And not just the bad. I wanna speak for the men that went through something, but also felt like they weren’t going to become the person that they are and they listened to Future and became a better person.”

Future’s sixth studio album, The WIZRD, is set to be released Friday.