Earl Sweatshirt is as much of a phenom as he is elusive, and this has been a fact over the past half-decade or so. Nonetheless, when he comes out of the shadows, he proves time and time again that there’s not an emcee that could stand a chance against him bar for bar, and I don’t know how he can continue to deliver such creative, lyrical records every time he releases something new. It has been a few years since we received his last solo release entitled FEET OF CLAY, but I couldn’t be more amped up about the announcement that his next project SICK! is set to release on January 14th of the new year.
Although the hype surrounding Earl projects is always through the roof, he decided to team up with Armand Hammer, a duo that has been making waves in the industry recently, and together they brought “Tabula Rosa” to life, which comes equipped with a Josh-directed music video that shows these three artists spitting their bars all in one take, which isn’t an easy feat after hearing some of the insane lines they spit. The Alchemist took over on the production for this record and considering he has worked so closely with every single talent on this song, he knows just the right way to put an instrumental together for these three talents to absolutely thrive.
E L U C I D begins right off the bat, spitting some smooth yet introspective and intelligent lines that allow your mind to wander and your thoughts to scatter. Billy Woods comes in next, receiving the hand-off from his counterpart before going into attack mode, delivering lines full of assertiveness and pure proficiency. Finally, Earl rounds things out with another perfectly thought-provoking and intellectual part that gives me goosebumps knowing that there is so much more of this to come on January 14th. In a press release that came along with this song, Earl mentioned a few things about the upcoming project:
“SICK! is my humble offering of 10 songs recorded in the wake of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic and its subsequent lockdowns. Before the virus I had been working on an album I named after a book I used to read with my mother (‘The People Could Fly’). Once the lockdowns hit, people couldn’t fly anymore. A wise man said art imitates life. People were sick. The People were angry and isolated and restless. I leaned into the chaos cause it was apparent that it wasn’t going anywhere. These songs are what happened when I would come up for air. Peace and love to Zelooperz the enigma, The Armand Hammer, and my good friends Alchemist and Black Noi$e. Peace and love to u.”
Earl has never been one to speak anything but the truth both inside and outside of his music, so “Tabula Rasa” is just another song that I will be listening to nonstop before we finally get to indulge in SICK! at the beginning of 2022.