If you haven't been to an ODD FUTURE show and chanted ‘Free Earl’ with hundreds of other angry kids, you might be scratching your head and thinking, ‘Who the fuck is EARL SWEATSHIRT and why should I care?”
Short answer:
Long answer:
Thebe Kgositsile, better known as EARL SWEATSHIRT, was a member of Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, the music/skating collective headed by Tyler, the Creator, up until the release of 2010’s Earl. Earl’s mother, of course, didn’t react kindly to his dark, explicit lyricism, prompting his sudden disappearance from Odd Future’s huge online presence. Members of the collective fell eerily silent regarding speculations on his whereabouts; it would be alleged in May 2011 that Earl had been boarding in Samoa’s Coral Reef Academy.
Wherever he was in his two years away from the world, Earl is back.
Last week, Earl created a Twitter account, linking a snippet of a song and demanding 50,000 followers for the release of the entire song. Three hours and 75,000 followers later, he uploaded ‘Home’, and - holy shit - you wouldn’t have known that he’d ever left.
The wheezing, lo-fi synths on ‘Home’ scream Bastard-era Tyler, the Creator, while, lyrically, Earl remains as sharp as ever, rhyming harder than “nine joggers with shin splints dodging an ornery rhinoceros” (which he happens to make rhyme).
It's good to have you back, Earl. We've missed you.
Listen to ‘Home’ here, and give him a warm welcome back on Twitter
Words by Stephen Pham.
