Last night, Future surprise-released his long-teased Beast Mode sequel into this burning, inhospitable world. Though it's still too soon to definitively say if it lives up to its predecessor's lofty reputation, what's objective is that Zaytoven—the soul of Atlanta trap—is still delivering on its emotional, gospel-inspired sound. The beatmaking veteran spoke to The Fader today about Beast Mode 2, and gave some precious insight into the workflow that he and Future have developed over several years of collaboration.

According to Zay, he and Future built up a collection of "about 100 songs" over a few years before deciding which nine were most worthy to be packaged as a project. "It’s easier to digest that way," he tells The Fader, "We could’ve put 20 songs on there and it’d seem like we guessing. Like we don’t know which songs are the good ones so we just [put] ‘em all on there and let the fans pick." He elaborates on how Beast Mode 2 was originally going to be released in 2016, but the success of the Zaytoven-produced Drake and Future duet "Used to This," which was originally meant for the project, delayed things. The resulting project does indeed contain songs recorded in 2016, 2017, and this year.

Zaytoven does note that there is an overall vision that unites the disparate tracks: "It’s almost like a work of art. It’s not just a rap song, it’s art being painted to me. When I think about Beast Mode, that’s what I think about," he says. He goes on to state that "I listen to a lot of music ... but there still hasn’t been a project yet that touches me like Beast Mode has," and that he feels the sequel will kickstart another run for Future, similar to his legendary 2015 trilogy that also included Monster and 56 Nights. You can read the rest of the interview here.

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