Earl Sweatshirt fans finally have confirmation from the man himself: a new album is in the works. Taking to Twitter earlier this week, Earl broke the news in one short sentence: “making the album for you rn.”

It’s been two years since we had a new album from the Doris rapper, with his last album I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside out in March 2015. Last year he spent time producing under the alias randomblackdude, dropping the rhyme-free Bary and SKRT SKRT back in January. He did get back behind the mic for the Alchemist-produced track Wind In My Sails, also released in January.

In August he put out an instrumental track called Pelicula which was posted on Apple Music. Earl was also featured on Adult Swim Singles Program 2016 with the track Balance, produced by Knxwledge. We saw one more track last year in September, Death Whistles, released while Earl and Knxwledge were live streaming for Red Bull Music Academy. While each release was well received, they were disjointed, and provided no hints regarding a full new record.

We’ll keepyou posted when we hear more about what might is easily one of the year’s most highly anticipated albums.

Image: Redbull.com

After releasing single Wind In My Sails back in January, Earl Sweatshirt may have just sneakily released an unconventional follow-up.

Surfacing on Apple Music yesterday with little warning and no album art, Pelicula takes the form of a production based instrumental where vocal samples and ominous introductory chords quickly cut away into a washed-out synth hook accompanying ambient 70s breaks. Listen for yourself below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E92tsEHzo5k

The track may simply be an unfinished teaser, yet perhaps reflecting his DJ’ing debut as Earl Fletcher back in March, it could also suggest a move towards a more instrumental approach. Clocking in at just a minute and six seconds, the atmospheric track cuts out seemingly no sooner than it has begun.

Apple Music isn’t above mistakenly uploading music without an artist’s knowledge, so it’s unclear whether the former Odd Future member orchestrated the release. His social media channels have remained conspicuously silent but given Earl’s proclivity for dropping things out of the blue, it’s likely that Pelicula might be paving the way for something new.

Whether this new project will take the form of a follow-up to 2015’s fantastic I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside remains to be seen.

Read more: Dear Earl Sweatshirt, you’re breaking my heart

Image: Potholesinmyblog.com 

Do you like comics, specifically Marvel ones? Same. Do you like hip-hop? Of course you do, that’s why you’re here. Now we’re all on the same page, you might be aware that Marvel does a very good, wonderful, amazing thing called hip-hop comic cover variants, wherein comic covers are illustrated in the style of classic, buzzed-about, or seminal hip-hop cover art. The first wave of this thing-we-never-asked-for-but-have-since-realised-we-need-more-than-air was nothing short of incredible; it featured tributes to Run The Jewels, A Tribe Called Quest and many more, with over 50 covers in total.

Round two is a lot smaller than that, but it’s every bit as killer. There are three variants: Doctor Strange #1 riffs on Desiigner‘s smash hit Panda, Mosaic #1 references Earl by Earl Sweatshirt, and Black Panther #7 is a tribute to King Mez‘s Long Live The King. The comics will be released on September 28 (Strange) and October 12th (Panther and Mosaic).

Marvel hip-hop variants

Doctor Strange x Panda. Image: Marvel via Fuse

Marvel’s editor-in-chief Axel Alonso is passionate about the link between hip-hop and comics. In a statement to Fuse, he explained that the variants were “about two art forms shouting out to each other”, describing hip-hop as the “backbeat” for many artists & readers of comics. It’s clear he’s serious about fostering this connection: Run The Jewels soundtracked for the Black Panther video series, and Killer Mike even penned the forward for the previously-released variant book.

Marvel hip-hop variant

Black Panther x Long Live The King. Image: Marvel via Fuse

For his part at least, King Mez seems pretty feckin’ stoked: “Growing up a huge comic book fan, it was a dream to come true to even be a part of this. Black Panther at that? Mannn, it was automatic when Marvel reached out. Really cool way to have LLTK immortalised like that. Hope we get to do a variant collab on my new project too.”

Keep your eyes peeled in the coming months, too – more variants are set to be released. Dunno about you, but I for one will be spending some time trying to figure out how to get one of these babies blown up to poster-size.

Image: Marvel via Fuse

Read more: Marvel Releasing Book of Hip-Hop Variant Covers

Though it’s safe to say we’re very familiar with his work as Earl Sweatshirt, last month the now-22-year-old rapper adopted a new moniker, Earl Fletcher, which he DJed under for the first time at a Boiler Room event sponsored by GoPro. The footage has just surfaced, and it’s pretty FOMO-inducing.

Held at Odd Future signees Trash Talk’s Skate Shop in LA (check their set here), the little over an hour long set gets covered at a number of angles around the shop – from the bowl on the roof, to running through the crowd, and in true Boiler Room style, right in front of the DJ (no awkward crowds behind Earl for the most part though). His track choices are pretty much what you’d expect if you’ve been listening to any of his latest releases. He jumps from classic soul, to Lil Wayne, to super down-tempo instrumentals, and then to Lil B. It’s a mix of fun and interesting, but the crowd is glued to the floor pretty far back, recording on their phones before Earl asks around the 26 minute for them to get around it. Get around it yourself below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tZHh8zj3H4

Since his career really took off back in 2010, at the tender age of 16, Earl’s shown the world that he’s a super versatile musical mind. Making beats, rapping, and now jumping behind the decks, it’ll be exciting to see what shows he plays next under Earl Fletcher, and how this changes his other work.

Check out our open letter to Earl here.

Photo: Boiler Room

Earl Sweatshirt released one of the best albums of the year last year with I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside – a dark, introspective record that saw the rapper grapple with where his life is today. Since then, he hasn’t been afraid to speak his mind (less than he was before), and his latest interview is perhaps his most frank yet.

Chatting with A Country Called Earth over email, Sweatshirt has given some interesting insight into where he is at in his life right now. Like on the notion of fame, Earl said “If you had asked me to describe fame a few years ago, I would’ve told you that fame is a stressful and dehumanizing pedestal,” but now he has changed his tune a little. “I’m blessed to have a platform that allows me to speak to many at once. I recognize[sic] that I can make consciousness a tangible thing for young people.”

He also touched on the ability social movements have to “shift the societal landscape”, namely Black Lives Matter: “Black Lives Matter has already demonstrated that it has the power to shift the societal landscape by bringing awareness to age old issues that have plagued us as a people. I’m fully behind it.”

The interview, though short and sweet, shows a side of Earl that is once again different to what we’ve already seen. Seemingly intent on growing and changing as much and as fast as he can, he’s becoming an enigma of sorts in the rap game and it’s certainly interesting to say the least to watch him continue to change.

Oh, and if he could fight any historical figure, it would be Christopher Columbus, “for obvious reasons.”

Check out the whole interview here and read our satirical open letter to Earl Sweatshirt here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ5Mu2gs-M8

 

Earl Sweatshirt dropped three new tracks earlier this week, barely two weeks after releasing Mirror, a track which was left off his 2015 album I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside.

The first track Earl released is titled Wind in My Sails and is the only one of the three that Earl raps on. The Alchemist (tagged in the sound clip) produced the track which is one of Earl’s best releases of late, and should definitely keep fans enthused until his next single or album.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/243825202″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Earl took to Twitter with some cryptic tweets before releasing the tracks via SoundCloud. Although Kanye fans might not have found the tweets so obscure, recognising them as lyrics from Kanye’s Barry Bonds, which Earl clearly has an affinity for as the next track released is titled Bary and samples Kanye’s Barry Bonds. Bary is basically Kanye’s song chopped and screwed, with a notable absence of Earl’s rapping.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/243836480″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

The third track released, Skrt Skrt, is a kind of hazy instrumental. It is a very different vibe to anything Earl has put his name to but is an interesting direction to go. Not one to do the same thing twice, Earl has made a name for himself by basically doing whatever the hell he wants, so whilst the direction itself may come as a surprise, the fact that this has even happened at all really isn’t.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/243838668″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

By the looks of it Earl is showing casing his abilities as a hip-hop all-rounder, possibly in the hopes that he can start a new group, and it seems that none other than Chance The Rapper has heard his call, with the latter confirming that he’s wanted to work with Earl for “many years” on Twitter.

Chance has had an amazing collaborative career so far with Surf (with Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment) and his Free Based Freestyles joint mixtape (with Lil B). And with his third solo mixtape approaching completion, he may have just found his next dynamic project. We can dream, right?

When Earl Sweatshirt was interviewed by NPR’s Frannie Kelley and Ali Shaheed Muhammed, he said that in order for him to conceive of a new album, he first imagines its cover on iTunes, as I image many young emcees do. But Earl has now also been given the opportunity to think of the cover for vinyl as well. Earl’s first two studio albums Doris (2013) and I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside (2015) are to be rereleased on vinyl on December 11 via Tan Cressida/Columbia; each comes with new album artwork (Doris, above; I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside, below.)

idontliek

When Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly was released on vinyl, I was surprised as it seems that the majority of the buying public’s music collection now only exists in digital form – and especially in Lamar and Earl’s generation. I have hundreds of beat-up CDs which have all been ripped into digital form now, but no vinyls. So apparently I’m not the hip hop head I claim to be. People who buy vinyls now do it strictly for the love of it, and any hip hop vinyl fan should be sure to get these two.

If you order I Don’t Like Shit via Vinyl Me, Please, you’ll receive limited edition clear vinyl with blue marbling.

Check out the psychedelic animated clip for Off Top, directed by Taylor Johnson. The track is the second single off the album I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside which was released back in March to many positive reviews. Read the review on Howl and Echoes here.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrxxfrzJY6k]

Dear Earl,

I know that as a fan you don’t owe me anything. Paying the admission price for your concerts does not give me a stake in your identity. But still, you’re breaking my heart.

I’m worried about you. Your new album is dark and disconcerting. I can remember a time before the Xanax, and before you fell in with a bad crowd (you stay away from him Vincent Staples, you are a bad influence!) A time when you liked some things, and weren’t adverse to the outdoors. Your raps were fast and buoyant and you obeyed time signatures. You rapped almost exclusively about murder. It was a simpler time. Now your raps are languorous, the beats are non-music and your rhymes are introspective and cerebral. Of course a part of me knew you couldn’t remain a bellicose youngster forever. I just didn’t think you would grow up so quick…

sad

And then there was that Twitter rant against your most loyal fan base. The people who have stuck by you from the very beginning. Probably the first instance in history where a performer has referred to his own fans as “male virgins.” Imagine if other public figures said that about their fans!? There would be outcry. Could you picture the creators of World of Warcraft or My Little Pony the Rocky movies saying that about their fans?

And then you attacked the very specific dress sense of your followers – which is of course, totally inspired by the fashion of Tyler the Creator. “STOP DRESSING LIKE AN EASTER BASKET, GO TALK TO SOME BITCHES” you tweeted, assumedly referring to this particular ensemble (available online for $129.00USD).

easterbasket

Hey. I spent a lot of money on those clothes. Having spent the better part of my teenage years dressed as an Easter Basket, I resent that.

shame

And then you punched that fan in Sydney. Don’t get me wrong: you had every right to do that. It’s clear that guy has done more for the term “fuck boy” than Michael Jackson. He invaded your personal space and you removed him. But I still can’t escape the feeling that this is something you had wanted to do for a long time….

And now there’s talk that you’ll even change your name. Changing your name means completely abandoning the identity so many had grown to love. For me, ‘Earl Sweatshirt’ is the greatest hip-hop moniker of all time. It’s pure hip hop. It has a David Lynch quality to it – a perfect combination of the banal and the absurd. Part dull, part remarkable. It parodies the Kanye West tradition of using ones real name to create authenticity. Is Earl his real name? Is this a character or the man himself? No, it’s the ultimate character, the greatest rap character of all time. The name has skate connotations, it’s witty, and has a beautiful cadence. In your transition to artiste I’m guessing you will go the way of Childish Gambino, and just adopt you real name, Thebe Kgositsile, to showcase your maturity. It makes sense I guess. I’m not angry. Just sad.

I liked the old Earl Sweatshirt. I’m scared of what you’re becoming.

padme

(Just FYI – we’re fuckin’ around. We love ya, Earl.)

 

Words by Alex Osborne

It’s taken me years to be persuaded that the ‘kids’ from Odd Future had raps. Stuck in my ways as a cynical, old school hip hop fan, I despised change and had listened to no new albums after about 2006. I wouldn’t give these 19-year-olds the time of day – until this past summer, that is, when I found myself nodding along to the dark vibes of a deep- voiced man with a tight flow. Earl Sweatshirt, undoubtedly one of the great rappers around today. These days I do my best to play Earl as loud as I can in the car, pretending that I’ve been a fan all along.

In town in support of his recent Splendour in the Grass set, fans at Melbourne’s Prince Bandroom eagerly awaited for Earl to take the stage. With an atmosphere more akin to a Saturday night than the Tuesday it was, the line snaked around the entire venue long before doors opened at 8pm.

Always providing a great atmosphere, the St Kilda venue boasts the kind of clear, excellent sound that really does benefit hip hop gigs – considering the lyrical detail that defines most hip hop, a venue’s sound quality can make or break a live show.

Although the gig advertised ‘special guests’, there were none to be seen – no Odd Future crew, no friends, not even an opening act.

A man of few words, Earl jumped straight into the performance with a rousing rendition of Pre. It took a few tracks before he really settled into groove; the crowd lost their shit when he dropped Molasses. Even the bartenders were rapping along.

“Don’t act like you know the words,” he grinned, obviously lapping up the attention and dedication of his Melbourne fans. Line by line, he soon had the entire audience rapping the chorus of Grown Ups, off his most recent release I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside (read our album review here.) Alongside tracks from his new album, Earl wooed the crowd with favourites from solo debut Doris, and even played a brand new song.

His new song, which as far as I can tell is called Mirror, is a little different, a little speedier. A brash, exciting glimpse of what the 21-year-old is capable of, it’ll be interesting to see the direction in which he takes his new music, considering the doom-and-gloom mentality we heard on IDLSIDGO. The future holds countless more dope tracks for the artist who has well and truly etched his name into the wet cement of today’s hip hop.

The die hard fans in ‘Free Earl” t-shirts may have been a little disappointed by the lack of Odd Future tracks throughout the set. It all flipped around however, when he came out to perform Drop for the encore.

This wasn’t a gig that boasted a huge stage show, huge hype-ups or any of that nut-grabbing rap stuff. It was Earl, being himself – and having fun with it. Smiling, laughing and loving the audience, Earl Sweatshirt has well and truly emerged from the Odd Future shadow, and is paving his way to the status of living legend.

 

It wouldn’t be a show of any of the OFWGKTA alumni if there wasn’t a little bit of controversy thrown into the mix. And there was just that on Saturday night when Earl Sweatshirt played at Sydney’s Max Watt’s.

The 21-year-old rapper was mid performance when an audience member stormed the stage in what looked like an attempted attack on Earl, before being met with the performers left-hook. Garrett Stevenson of Trash Talk also kicked the man before he was taken out of the venue by security. The Instagram footage recorded by a fellow audience member can be seen below.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWAAXwtFMhI]

Apparently the incident took place after Earl called the man a fucktard for repeatedly kicking other fans in the face while trying to crowd surf. The rapper has since taken to Twitter to say the following.

Earl is mid-way through his Australian tour playing Splendour last night before heading on to Melbourne and Perth this week. If there is a lesson to be learned here, it’s don’t mess with Earl Sweatshirt if you want to come out unscathed.