Fingering the bleakest moment on Future's DS2 is more of a barstool debate than a critical one, but I'll take it up anyway and point to the interlude on "Kno the Meaning", deep into the record's latter half. Future stops rapping, which he's only half-doing at this point anyway, and outlines in loopy spoken word what happened after his DJ, Esco, was arrested in Dubai: "People didn't even understand that my hard drives that I recorded all my music for two years straight was on this…was on this one hard drive that Esco had and he was locked up with it so I had to record new music. That's when I did Beast Mode." It's as if he's so dejected by this loss (of music—no mention of the 56 nights Esco spent in prison) that he couldn't pull together a cohesive verse and just had to talk out his heartbreak. Is this what it sounds like when Future goes to therapy?

If not straight lamenting, the rest of DS2 feels equally bummed out. Future's best songs have always been his heaviest, and here he wastes no time swatting at sunshine. DS2 is 18 songs with just one feature (Drake). The rest is Future alone at his rawest, song after song. The sound of his voice here is tinged sour, scratchy like he never stops smoking and/or just woke up. But his rapping is nimble and dreamy, partially because he never seems to fully pronounce anything, even when he hits double time. It’s a strange effect. And it’s a strange record. The production is mostly slow and sad, peppered with alarms, weezy keyboards, hi-hats at the tempo of anxious toe-tapping. On the verse before the interlude on "Kno the Meaning", Future says the best thing he ever did was fall out of love. He says it like it’s nothing. What kind of darkness is this guy experiencing? On "Rotation", he outlines some of the more money/more problems aspects of his life as a rich person. Sure, shortly after he says with a glint of pride, "Ask me how it feels to be a millionaire." But notice he doesn’t answer the question. —Matthew Schnipper

Future: "I Serve the Base"