Day 371: Earl Sweatshirt – Some Rap Songs

I need a short album today, thankfully there are rappers out there who understand that brevity is sometimes necessary. Clocking in at a tidy 25 minutes, it’s time to listen to Earl Sweatshirt’s Some Rap Songs.

Album cover courtesy of Tan Cressida Records

Earl Sweatshirt, or Thebe Neruda Kgositsile, is a rapper from California who started rapping when he was in the seventh grade. He rose to fame at a very young age when Tyler, the Creator discovered his music on MySpace and invited him to join his rap collective Odd Future. He also self-released  mixtape called Earl at only 16 years old, which was very well-received critically. However, his music career was put on pause when his mother sent him to a facility for at-risk youth in Samoa and didn’t allow him to release new music, which led to a brief online campaign by Odd Future fans, urging his mother to Free Earl.

Some Rap Songs was released in 2018 as Earl Sweatshirt’s third album during a bad time in his life, he’d lost both his father and then his uncle in quick succession. The album is centred around the mental health issues that he was experiencing at the time, with him rapping about his depression and drug dependencies. It was critically well-received and landed on a number of lists of best albums of the year.

I’ve been meaning to listen to Earl Sweatshirt for a while now, but I read that his early stuff was very descriptively violent, I’d heard he’s great but I thought I’ve got one life on earth and I’m just not going to spend it listening to a teenager rapping about sex offences. I’m glad to see, though, that he’s definitely matured and grown up by the time Some Rap Songs. It’s introspective and sophisticated, with him rapping in a stream-of-consciousness style over some mellow, grainy beats.

While the subject matters he’s rapping about are occasionally very heavy, it’s sonically still mostly nostalgic-sounding and warm, almost comforting. It doesn’t sound at all like something you’d expect from someone who’d made a name of himself rapping about violence as a teen, it’s a very well-rounded and emotional album that comes off as poetic and introspective. And it’s emotionally raw but easy to listen to, which isn’t always a given.

It’s good, I liked it. Earl Sweatshirt was definitely worth a listen and I’m glad it wasn’t at all what I thought it’d be. I’m giving Some Rap Songs an 8/10.