Almost a decade after his last project with Odd Future, the hip-hop prodigy Earl Sweatshirt has returned with his fourth studio album, “SICK!”
Fifteen years ago, an 11-year-old kid under the pseudonym “Sly Tendencies,” released a few tracks from his mixtape, “Kitchen Cutlery,” onto Myspace. Three years later, an up-and-coming rapper famously known as Tyler, the Creator found “Sly Tendencies” on Myspace and asked him to join his group, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA).
“Sly Tendencies,” whose birth name is Thebe Neruda Kgositsile, changed his alias to Earl Sweatshirt and dropped his debut mixtape, “Earl” in 2010. “Earl” was named the 24th best album of 2010 by Complex Networks, a significant feat for 16-year-old Earl. Earl’s mother, however, was not a fan of her son’s lifestyle and sent him to a retreat school for ‘at-risk’ boys. During his stay, Earl wrote the lyrics featured on “Oldie,” his only contribution to Odd Future’s 2012 mixtape, “The OF Tape Vol. 2.”
By the time Earl was 18 years old, he had been labeled as “the most exciting rapper to emerge in years, a virtuoso who was just starting to figure out what he could do with words,” by The New Yorker.
On Earl’s new album, listeners can expect clearcut lyrics, undeniable flow, and a newfound sense of confidence in Earl’s voice like we’ve never heard before.
“SICK!” opens with “Old Friend,” a track that seemingly touches on the disappearance of Odd Future, supported by the lyrics “I held the page / gave the book ears / whispered ‘thanks’ / hella pain / heavy rain in the Catskills.” Or perhaps, Earl Sweatshirt was simply journaling in the Catskill mountains. “2010,” a track about overcoming personal struggles, featured as many slant rhymes as it did truisms—and all of them worked perfectly. “And I didn’t look back when I broke soil / ‘cause every time I did it would hurt more;” Earl repeated this line twice, granting the already distinct words more prominence.
The title track of the album, “Sick!” delves into Earl’s experience in the limelight and exemplifies his ‘no B.S.’ attitude. The track fades into a cracked radar sound, accompanied by distant bird chirps surrounding a voice asking, “What’s magic?” The question is answered on Earl’s moody trap track, “Vision,” where a woman gleefully says, “Magic is only make-believe and our children do not need to grow up in a make-believe world.” The optimistic voice entangled with Earl’s gritty sound creates a beautiful, metaphorical auditory contrast.
On the record’s fifth track, “Tabula Rasa,” listeners will instantly be met with Armand Hammer’s intense verse, accompanied with andante chord progressions. Listeners will hear how Earl recognizes and salutes the lingering anxieties he continues to face with buoyancy and resilience. “The madness method rampant these days / I let the panic pass me / featherweight / my heart was straight / despite baggage.” The key playing in “Tabula Rasa” continues four seconds into “Lye,” where we hear Earl belch before spitting, “Same one that I forgot to praise still above me / One thing about it, I’ma beat ‘em to the punches.” “Lye” is about Earl’s chase to find a relationship with God—one where he doesn’t have to take accountability. Earl preached that once he foraged inward, the God he was searching for appeared. “Callin’ out for the Lord / lookin’ low and high / finally found it at the core of my dimming fire.”
“Lobby,” the interlude of “SICK!” gently and intelligently scratches the surface of the injustices suffered by Black individuals in America when Earl says “I know it’s a quota to fill / Where you going and what’s your intent?” Earl concludes “Lobby” with a baseball reference that serves as a metaphor for his “felonious past.” Listeners will be made aware of Earl’s triumphant spirit with the final words, “I’m coming home, but love where he slid / And he is safe, well, he is superhuman / Wow, overturned call, what a slide.”
“Titanic,” the second to last song on “SICK!,” opens with a beat so hard that listeners are forced to sit in suspense until Earl’s delivery is heard. Earl addresses the time he spent at the retreat school he was sent to a decade back by rapping, “Sent a postcard from the depth / Bleed the vein ‘til nothing left / You look drained, you should get some rest.”
Earl Sweatshirt concludes “SICK!” with a levelheaded track called “Fire in the Hole.” The track highlights Earl’s optimistic nature as he moves through the many different phases of his life. Earl blended his expressions of harmony and dynamics with the tempo of his verses to create an undeniably satisfying rhythm.
Earl’s concise, yet empathically creative work proves that there is beauty, confidence, and true artistry in brevity. The album’s faultless production work, entoned with Earl’s lyrical precision, cultivated a mesmerizing track list that will no doubt be played on repeat for years to come.
