Deltron 3030 follows up his eponymous debut with a new studio album released early this October called Event 2 that launches its listeners back into a familiar sonic future-scape.

Recently, genre has emerged as a major issue in music journalism, as writers invent subgenera to fit the description they detail. A particularly dangerous label to categorize an album as is “joke rap.‰” Though arbitrarily differentiating styles of rap through the discipline of signifying that which deviates from the norm as a “new‰” genre can lend itself to comparisons between similar artists, the practice of dividing one artist from his or her peers only disadvantages the impact of the artist. With its appearances from comedic actors and its general tongue-in-cheekness, It can be tempting to refer to Event 2 as “joke rap,‰” though this label disservices the music as it diminishes the potential impact of its content.

From the get-go, taking Deltron 3030 seriously can become a daunting task: the new album begins with a Star Trek-esque journal-entry monologue narrated by none other than actor Joseph Gordon Levitt. In this soliloquy, Levitt sets the scene as absurdist, futuristic dystopia-like space that occupies the rest of Event 2.

Perhaps the most profoundly aesthetic and meaningful sounds on the record finds themselves in the track “Look Across the Sky,‰” in which an etherial lullaby backs lyrics which focus on the “realities‰” of grinding for survival in the fourth millennium. In this way, Event 2 satirizes the entire genre of hip-hop; just as many rappers adopt a persona that fits with a gang-banging lifestyle, so does Deltron 3030 assimilate the role of a duo of heroes in a comedically familiar futuristic setting.

Just because actors David Cross, Amber Tamblyn and even musical comedy collective The Lonely Island appear on the album to discuss the insipid differences in the distant future, Deltron 3030 keep their work relevant. By unifying contemporary personal themes with a fantastical futuristic setting, Event 2 encourages its listeners to differentiate between the real and the arabesque within the album‰’s lyrics.