Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Earl Sweatshirt

Recently I've realized that I've been posting a lot of bands within the same genre, so today I'm mixing it up. I'm sure most of you have heard of the music collective Odd Future (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All). Well Earl Sweatshirt is part of that collective. Earl is one of my favorite rappers from the collective alongside Jasper and Hodgy Beats. I haven't quite figured out why Earl is my all-time fave. maybe it's the quirky and undeniably smart lines. OFWGTA is a collective that is extremely offensive. The thing I like most about Earl Sweatshirt is that his music isn't always like that. The thing about being a music collective is that the collective is usually a self-titled (or self-owned) record label, like Wu-Tang Clan. Earl also happens to signed to Columbia Records. Earl has released music with actual meaning and no offense (kind of). He's released a song with no swearing. Which is a pretty big thing if you think about it, rap, with absolutely no swearing? Different that's for sure. Despite the lack of curse words, it doesn't lack any of its potency. There is a reason why he belongs to OFWGKTA, and collective's music is needless to say, controversial. He released a song titled, “Chum”, which explains his struggles growing up and in order to understand it you should probably know his history since the lines are pretty difficult to understand. People always said rap was just poetry put into song, and for “Chum” that seems to be the case. Lines don’t always rhyme throughout the song and it can be pretty confusing since people these days think that’s all rap is.

     Earl Sweatshirt was really born Thebe Neruda Kgositsile on February 24, 1994. He was born to mother Cheryl who is a law professor at the University of California and his dad who is South African and has an even more unpronounceable name than Earl’s. Earl’s father was a poet and a political activist who fled back to South Africa when Earl was six years old.


     So how did Earl become a part OFWGKTA anyways? Well, for that story we go to 2009. At this point in time, there was no Facebook or Twitter. MySpace was the cool place to be. Earl called himself Sly Tendencies and was working on a mix tape (I don’t really think I need to explain this, but he was on MySpace). Tyler The Creator, who is the founder for OFWGKTA found him on the site and instantly recruited him. On Match 31st, 2010, Earl self-released his debut album, Earl. Most of the album was produced by Tyler and it was a huge hit. Even though Earl’s music was a huge hit, there were rumours that he had stopped making music with Odd Future. Everybody was really curious and didn't understand why. Tyler confirmed these rumours via Twitter and Formspring saying that Earl’s mother wouldn't give them permission to release his music. Later on Earl's mother has sent him to Coral Reef Academy located in Apia, Samoa. There, Earl was given little freedom and even had to have supervision when going to the bathroom, which in my opinion is very creepy and an invasion of privacy. However, he did end up becoming a roll model for new students as the school was for at-risk male teens and had to earn his privilege to go back home. Earl wrote rhymes while he was in Samoa including his verse for the song "Oldie" by Odd Future. In 2011 Earl was nominated to be a candidate for XXL Magazine's Freshman List and released three previously unreleased songs.

     By February 8th, 2012 the word on the street, or rather the internet, was that Earl had returned from Samoa. There was an official twitter for him, and a preview for a new song on Youtube. The rumour was confirmed on this new twitter and he released the full song after he achieved 50,000 followers. The song was called "Home" which is pretty ironic. Earl also made an official website for himself. In an interview Earl had explained that his mother had sent him to Samoa explicitly because of his bad behaviour, and not because of his music's lyrical content.

     Blah blah blah. He released a lot of music and mixtapes, but the most important piece of information is that Earl created his own record label through Columbia Records. He is still a part of Odd Future, but run's his own show now too. His first solo song since returning from boarding school was "Chum"from his album Doris which was released on August 20th, 2013.


"Chum" By Earl Sweatshirt
http://c400862.r62.cf1.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/tumblr_mcty2k6a6T1qb8q0zo1.mp3


"Oldie" By OFWGKTA (Earl's verse is at 7:00-9:00)*Warning Explicit Content, Parental Advisory*
http://a.tumblr.com/tumblr_m15wu7DZP31qeadb2o1.mp3

"Molliwopped"By Earl Sweatshirt
http://dc476.4shared.com/img/1456173105/6ac7156a/dlink__2Fdownload_2FBwynRPwf_3Ftsid_3D20131106-103416-a50ad9f0/preview.mp3

Warning & Disclaimer: If you plan on listening to anymore of Earl's music, it is highly explicit including, but not limited to music pertaining to and associated with: Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All(all members, including Frank Ocean), Mac Miller, Casey Veggies, The Alchemist, Vince Staples, Action Bronson, Flying Lotus, Captain Murphy, MellowHype, Ommas Keith, Thundercat, The Neptunes, Christian Rich, BadBadNotGood, Pharrell Williams, Samiyam, The Internet, RZA, Columbia Records music label, Tan Cressida music label and Matt Martians. This is not endorsed, and my intentions are not to corrupt, or offend anyone. I have given full warning of explicit content and do not take any responsibility what so ever. 

2 comments:

  1. I totally agree that everyone's lost sight of what a good rap song is nowadays, because all you hear now is swearing. It's refreshing to have an artist that doesn't have to swear to release a good song. I'm pretty sure that I've heard of Earl, but I never really knew about his backstory so thanks for sharing that! Really opened my eyes!

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    1. Hey, I know I said no swearing, but I realized now that there is one word, but it's not a huge deal. And I totally agree, I want a good rap song I can listen to in the car with my mom and not be embarassed because of profanity or have to shut it off.

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