Future’s new duet partner used to play in a pizza-parlor band. In the video for “Build a B*tch,” which Cole Bennett directed and Lyrical Lemonade released on Oct. 6, Future is a welder in an aluminum-walled room, throwing sparks in black and white as he pieces together an animatronic endoskeleton. By the chorus, the robot is singing along with him. It was once part of the animatronic band at a ShowBiz Pizza Place in the early ’80s, Bennett told Highsnobiety, and its face is two masks molded together. Watch it below.
Rolling Stone calls the song, from Future’s latest album, The Real Me, a “beatless ballad,” which makes the robot’s harmonies even stranger. The whole thing started with a chance meeting: Bennett ran into Future and his right-hand man, Zona Man, in the same suite at the World Cup, and a couple of days later Zona Man called to say yes. Bennett had his angle right away.
Making Future a welder was pretty much the launch point. I wanted to go in a direction that no one would expect, and ever since I did the “P.O.V.” video with Clipse and Tyler, the Creator last year, I’ve been diving deeper into the animatronics world, so it was a no-brainer.
Cole Bennett, Highsnobiety
To pitch it, he took old footage of 1980s endoskeleton animatronics, turned it black and white and laid the song over it. Future’s verdict, as Bennett tells it: “This is perfect.” Building the real thing was a sprint. The team tracked the robot down, shipped it from Missouri and assembled its mechanisms themselves.
It’s only the second video the two have made together. In Lyrical Lemonade’s behind-the-scenes film, Future says they hadn’t shot one since they were with Juice WRLD seven years ago (Rolling Stone suggests he means “No Issue,” from WRLD on Drugs), and before the cameras roll he adds, “This is for Juice.”
The robot isn’t flawless, and Bennett likes it that way. “It’s two masks molded together, so it has many imperfections, but to me, it's perfect,” he said. Its builder told him two more weeks would have made it perfect. Bennett wasn’t worried.
You can't be too hyper-fixated on perfection because it's never going to be perfect.
Cole Bennett, Highsnobiety
The same idea runs through the shoe he released five days before the video. For the Birkenstock Boston’s 50th anniversary, Bennett covered the clog in off-white wool felt that varies in length, density and tone, and gave it a crescent “Moon Buckle” in antique dark copper, a nod to his dog, Moon, per Hypebeast. It came out Oct. 1 under 1774, Birkenstock’s Paris-based special projects and collaborations unit, and the cork-latex footbed is untouched, Footwear News notes. The instructions tell owners to “cut it” and “customize it,” and one campaign image has Bennett trimming the wool with shears beside a Yeti-like figure.
Be careful with them if you wish, but the off-white color is my way of encouraging people to get them a little dirty. Give them some character that feels true to you.
Cole Bennett, in a statement, Complex
It has been a long time coming. Bennett first worked with the brand on a BIRKENSTORIES video in 2018 and showed the shoe at a pop-up at ComplexCon on Oct. 3–4. “Working with Birkenstock has been a dream of mine for over 10 years,” he said in his statement. His grandfather models in the campaign. “To involve my family was so important. It’s something I'll have forever,” Bennett told Highsnobiety.
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At 30, and 13 years into making videos, Bennett says he looks up to “the Virgils and the Pharrells of the world,” and he’s working on a documentary about 1980s animatronic culture. He’s also bullish on the rap underground he has long championed. “Not everything needs to be a Billboard hit,” he said. “Look at these artists selling hard tickets.”
Next on his list: “I want to make movies.” He has already left himself an opening. The Future video ends on the words “TO BE CONTINUED.”
- Video
- Future, “Build a B*tch,” Oct. 6, 2026
- Album
- The Real Me
- Shoe
- Birkenstock 1774 x Cole Bennett Boston, Oct. 1, 2026
- Shot in
- Miami
