Earl Sweatshirt established his interestingly abrasive sound with no apologies in his first mixtape "Earl." After five years of honing both his production and lyricism, he has managed to keep the core of his sound just as interesting while making it less abrasive to the listener in his latest album, "I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside." Earl’s advancements in production quality have improved tenfold over the course of his career.
This is apparent from the very first sample on the record—the sound of a tape deck being loaded. It's subtle samples and textures like these in tracks like "Mantra" and "Off Top" that show just how well this album was produced. A more obvious indication of the production quality, though, is the cohesive feel of the album as a whole. The retro, rough-around-the-edges style of instrumentation almost-made gives the listener the sense of being in an old, darkly-lit arcade.
His lyricism, like his instrumentation, also has the power to transport his listener. His words almost numb you into a hypnotic state that feels like reading poetry off a bathroom stall of an abandoned bar. That’s an ambitious metaphor, granted, but how else are we to feel when he drops first lines like “Intercepting a fifth of whiskey, and necking it ‘til I’m dizzy” in "DNA," the second to last track? It’s not just the lyrics themselves that provide this effect—it’s how Earl reads them.
In the fourth bar of the first verse off "DNA," Earl uses an impressive yet seemingly effortless amount restraint in dragging out the syllables of the word “difference.” This style of slowing his tempo way down when rhyming is far more impressive than rapping fast and it’s certainly more original. This, coupled with purposefully landing rhymes slightly off the beat, conveys an off-putting sense of indifference that is entirely unique to him.
When questioning whether or not to give this album your time, I would heed the advice of Earl himself: “Like it or not, when it drop, bet he gotta listen.”
Erik Liederbach is a member of the class of 2019.