By Sean Lynch
[Image courtesy of factmag.com]
Earl Sweatshirt hit a rough patch after the release of his mixtape Earl when he was sent to boarding school in Samoa until he was 18-years-old.
Sweatshirt felt that he doubted himself in his first studio album released in 2012, shortly after his return from Samoa, Doris. Sweatshirt needed a voice after his days of conformity with rap group Odd Future and his lost mind on Doris.
Even through all the uncertainty, I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside serves as a platform for Sweatshirt to reveal his true talent as an artist, and to finally let his voice be heard.
“Huey” serves as the opening track to Sweatshirt’s album. The song goes back to Sweatshirt’s Odd Future days with its comical lyric content as he rants on critics and talks about the change in his career as he came back to Los Angeles again. The song changes from a dreary organ to a simple drum beat with some synthesizer thrown in between.
“Off Top” creates an unsettling mood with its eerie piano and cold lyrics including “I’m only happy when there’s static in the air cause the fair weather fake to me.” The production is extremely choppy, but it goes along with the rap perfectly.
“Wool” features rapper Vince Staples; he matches Sweatshirt’s dark rap with his own dark verses. The beat is simple with the use of a cut up piano and a simplistic drum beat that captures the dark tone of the song.
“Grief” is the hit single from the album and comes off as artistically driven. The beat is glitchy and gives an eerie vibe to the song. Sweatshirt takes us to a dark place in his life, rapping about his struggles with drugs and finding himself after losing his grandmother.
Sweatshirt was upset with how National Public Radio handled his album’s release.
The album was originally supposed to only have been a music video released for the song “Grief,” but Top Dog Entertainment released everything but the music video.
Sweatshirt said through NPR Music: “I was so mad cause it was like — especially because I feel like this is my first album. This is the first thing that I’ve said that I fully stand behind, like the good and the bad of it. I’ve never been behind myself this much. So for them to not treat it as importantly as I was treating it was just like — I couldn’t help but to feel a little disrespected, you know?”
Earl Sweatshirt took simplicity and turned it into something special. Though the glitchy beats and dark raps, Sweatshirt finally found his own voice. Over the past few years, we have seen Sweatshirt mature through his projects, and I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside feels like the rounding off of his maturity. He has finally stepped away from the childish ways of Odd Future and has grown into a stronger rapper because of it.
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