### Earl Sweatshirt: Doris

#### 31/10/13 || The Duff

Earl Sweatshirt is a 19 year old hiphop artist. This will flabbergast you and not only because he sounds like someone who has been eating cigarettes for forty five years but looks like he has suffered the sleep deprivation of post-traumatic stress disorder onset by surviving the Vietnam War.

In hearing his lyrical content, how he marries words to flow like running water will equally leave you slack-jawed, the fact his father was a poet probably explaining everything to you eventually but his merging of syncopated rhythms and rhymes from someone so young truly remarkable; that this is his debut with the exception of some demos should propel this prodigy into stardom.

Now I know a lot of you are asking why the fuck I am writing about an hiphop artist for a metal site, and honestly when this guy gets brooding he writhes under the skin like Ulcerate, when despondent he mellows like Ulver, when he is humoured he is cheeky like Devin Townsend and when he writes happily he is uplifting like Isis (kinda). This guy is like the hiphop of early Jesu.

The backlash comes in the quality checks of his co-rap artists (one of whom legendary Wu Tang Clan RZA), his guest-spot features who are hit and miss. In no way is this more exemplified than on the opening track, where the first rapper (oddly not Earl Sweatshirt) is absolutely trounced (although when one of your lines is ‘pop that pussy’…) when subsiding his gang-rap clichés to meet the full-force powerhouse wrecking ball of someone so lyrically creative as Earl Sweatshirt.

Some of the artists the guests sound like are Lil’ Wayne but with less of a speech impediment, a bit more of a pace, the gruff style of ODB and that of the smooth womanising, sweet-talking Snoop Doggy Dogg Dogg. I am new to this rap game thinga-majigg, it is true.

But when Earl comes in his first beat with “I’m a problem to niggas”, a simple enough line, once you become acquainted to the young man’s boundless talent, the rest of his repertoire, you realise the power of every single word he evokes, all other artists on the record appearing secondary; he drops like a megaton hammerhead with the weight of years and years of introspection the likelihood of anyone reaching at 19 is seldom as it is scary.

- “Pick myself up off the sidewalk brush the dust up off my psyche”, that there is gold you rarely hear in the genre of rap.

There are moody interludes, and tracks seethe, breathe, undulate and echo into the resonance and life force that I’ve only ever come to associate with metal. The beats are unusual, even polyrhythmic, jazz-beats and samples and instrumentation and trip-hop – all very, very atmospheric, I defy you to listen to “Hoarse” and not be moved.

This is simply musical, through and through with the exception of some of the more idiotic contributions that honestly going by the quality of Earl’s lyrics are negligible – the more standout raps from the guests are “20 Wave Caps”, “Hive” (if only a little derivative), “Sasquatch”, “Centurion” and “Knight”.

Buy this record – it is iconic, and this from a man who idolises Eminem (as the only real hiphop I listen to), this surpasses even “The Marshall Mathers LP” and “The Eminem Show” by a longshot, two of my favourite records of all time – both artists are pretty much the peak of rhyme in the genre making most gangster rap artists obsolete in my eyes with the exception of er abolishing that whole white prejudice thing yeah.

- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Columbia Records
- Website: http://www.earlsweatshirt.com/
- Band
- Computers: erm, samples?
- Earl Sweatshirt: erm, vocals?

- Tracklist
- 01. Pre (featuring SK La’ Flare)
- 02. Burgundy (featuring Vince Staples)
- 03. 20 Wave Caps (featuring Domo Genesis)
- 04. Sunday (featuring Frank Ocean)
- 05. Hive (featuring Vince Staples & Casey Veggies)
- 06. Chum
- 07. Sasquatch (featuring Tyler, The Creator)
- 08. Centurion (featuring Vince Staples)
- 09. 523
- 10. Uncle Al
- 11. Guild (featuring Mac Miller)
- 12. Molasses (featuring RZA)
- 13. Whoa (featuring Tyler, The Creator)
- 14. Hoarse
- 15. Knight” (featuring Domo Genesis)