Great accomplishments often follow dark moments. As cliché as it sounds, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and we learn the most about ourselves at our worst moments. One can only grow from hitting rock bottom, and how we take responsibility for our situation and respond to adversity is a true test of character.
Earl Sweatshirt’s Some Rap Songs, released one year ago, is the product of pain, stemming from different forms of loss, and it’s an album that represents the epitome of growth in sonic form. It’s a grim record, but the album’s core principle bleeds hope. From lines like “found a reason to live” and “I found a new way to cope”, to the joyful nature of the instrumental outro “Riot!”, Some Rap Songs is an album built to guide listeners through trying times with knowledge that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
Some Rap Songs came after a wait. It arrived over three years after the two projects Earl dropped in 2015, I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside, alongside Solace. With projects like these, it was hard to anticipate exactly what Earl would deliver in 2018, but no one was prepared for what fans received after the hiatus. Upon hearing the project in full, it became clear that the wait was necessary. Without Earl’s life experience, and the related growth from loss and pain, this album doesn’t exist the way it does today.
For as much personal growth as we see through Earl’s lyrics, we see an equal amount of artistic growth in the record’s musicality. The beats are layered and lo-fi, with such a unique combination of sounds and textures, resulting in off-kilter loops hard to digest on the first few listens. The track lengths are extremely short, with the next track often starting before the last one can be fully comprehended.
Some of this sound is influenced by members of the New York underground scene that Earl shouts out all over the album, but the genius of Some Rap Songs can’t be chalked up to just this. There’s an aura unlike anything that bleeds from the album, a brisk and raw nature exclusive to itself.
Although each track totals out around a minute or two, they reinforce each other in commanding fashion, leaving a lasting impression, and offering something new with each listen. It’s an album that, once it clicks, it doesn’t get old, and it consumes the listener to the point where they can’t pull away. Earl values challenging the listener, creating a slow-burning experience. The initial unfamiliarity of Some Rap Songs intrigues the listener, bringing them back time and time again, until listening to it is second nature.
A vocal sample proclaiming “imprecise words” is the first thing that graces the listener’s ear upon pressing play, and it’s a perfect tone setter for the rest of the record. While meticulously crafted, Some Rap Songs is an open canvas for Earl’s poetic lyrics. With a seemingly generic title, he avoids restricting himself in any way from creating a therapeutic album.
It is quite the messy canvas though. While there are clearly certain themes focused on throughout the record, he bounces around from track to track, and within individual tracks. This isn’t supposed to be an album that clearly guides the listener through a certain narrative, or leaves the audience with one overarching message. That wouldn’t match the experience that Earl has lived over the past few years. We can’t be prepared for everything that comes our way, and he’s simply spilling out his thoughts into the world. He’s able to do it in a cohesive and engaging manner, but his experience is uneven.
The album starts on a darker note with heavy themes of blood, water, and dreams landing on tracks like “Shattered Dreams” and “Red Water”. Earl can’t quite seem to wrap his head around where he is at the beginning of the record, as if he’s in a manic state of sorts. First, he’s getting swallowed by The Endeavors’ vocal sample he uses in the instrumental on “Shattered Dreams”, then he’s floating over the “Red Water” instrumental (which can only be described as Solace 2.0) stuck in a rut of sorts, repeating his verse over and over.
Earl finds himself in a groove, figuratively and literally, on “Nowhere2go”, a track sandwiched between the two most aggressive cuts on the project, “Cold Summers” and “December 24.” Somehow, Earl is able to rap over this distracting yet gorgeous beat, and it makes for a true moment of clarity that finds Earl reflecting on where he is now with (at least some of) the past behind him.
Reflection is a huge part of this record, and a great deal of this reflection relates to Earl’s relationships with others. He understands the importance of relationships to his well-being, and if it’s not family, or a lover (which he only mentions a couple times), it’s his friends.
It’s no secret that Earl has transitioned social circles over the years since the days of Odd Future. It would be strange if he hadn’t, as it’s rare for one to have the same friends as a teenager a decade later. People mature during this time, gaining an understanding of what makes for good relationships, and what makes for relationships that aren’t worth keeping. Earl displays this level of self-awareness, as he knows what’s good for him and when to break off unhealthy relationships. He knows that self-improvement often comes from the company you keep, and he also realizes that while it’s tough to cut ties at first, it’s all for the better in the long run, as he raps lines like “of course my old lover was scorned, we grow from it” and “sterilize your clique.” He talks about his friends on “The Bends”, appreciating how far everyone has come, rapping “shit changed, now the checks that we seein’ is handsome.”
Earl isn’t moping around all over this record, which makes listening to it motivational. Moping is part of healing, and there’s some of that here which is normal, but it’s almost like he has the self-awareness to know that his pain will translate to growth and benefit him in the long run. He’s patient, he sees the light at the end of the darkness, and he realizes that one can’t get there without putting in the effort.
While friendships may not be forever, familial relationships don’t have as much wiggle room, and a majority of the relationships addressed on the record are familial. Almost every song on the album references family in one way or another, but it’s the last three tracks of the album that focus solely on it. There’s “Playing Possum”, which features recordings of both of Earl’s parents overlapping each other, with both touching on what family is truly about. Following that is the absolutely broken “Peanut”, which represents the deepest pain Earl felt about not being able to tie up loose ends with his father after his death. The track ends with Earl muttering “my Uncle Hugh”, making way for the light at the end of the tunnel, the cheerful “Riot!”, which samples his uncle, Hugh Masekela.
With hopeful themes scattered throughout the album, it only makes sense to end it on this note. For one, it helps cement this idea that family is forever with the incorporation of his Uncle’s song, but it is also a reminder that no matter how bad things get, everything will be alright. One day you’ll be able to feel the way that “Riot!” sounds, looking back on some of your darkest moments, and realizing how much you’ve grown from them. Some Rap Songs is Earl Sweatshirt trudging through his problems, and he’s trusting the process, obsessed with reaching the other side.