But whatever purpose it’s supposed to serve in Thug’s greater career arc, Barter 6 works as a beautiful descent into a uniquely psychedelic headspace. Maybe that’s a cop-out, a way of preventing himself from entirely standing behind this thing that he just made. And like Drake, Thug is taking that weird side route of claiming that this up-for-purchase-on-iTunes album is really a mixtape, that the actual album is coming later. It’s Thug’s first proper commercially available album, but like If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, the new one from Thug’s sort-of I-guess labelmate Drake, it’s content to dial in on a specific mental state, staying there and letting its sound breathe. The brand-new Barter 6 is a step further: It’s a mood piece, a confident low-key churn that luxuriates in vibe rather than songcraft. When he teamed up with Rich Homie Quan for “Lifestyle” and the great Rich Gang: Tha Tour Part 1 mixtape, Thug matured even further, smoothing out that energy and using it to assume larger-than-life rap-star status. Around the time he made “ Danny Glover” and “ Stoner,” Thug figured out how to direct that weirdness, to channel his alien energy into fast and exhilarating tracks. 1017 Thug, the mixtape that made Thug into something other than a local Atlanta sensation, was a clumsy, clanging piece of work, but it had enough ideas flying around in there to suck you in anyway. Over his first few mixtapes, Thug managed to transition from being a Lil Wayne disciple to a figure capable of pushing Wayne’s most way-out tendencies even further into the cosmos. He was fascinatingly, absorbingly weird, but he hadn’t learned what to do with that weirdness. There was a time, not that long ago, when “weird” was all Young Thug really was.

Young thug barter 6 album