In April 2017, Future released “Mask Off,” the hypnotic, menacing anthem that would become one of his biggest hits and the centerpiece of his self-titled album, Future. Built around a sample from Tommy Butler’s “Prison Song”—a composition originally featured in The “Selma” Album, a theatrical project honoring Martin Luther King Jr.—the song’s eerie flute loop carries echoes of a Civil Rights–era vision of uplift and deliverance. Butler’s original track is a solemn plea for resilience, urging Black men to hold on to hope in the face of oppression.