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Earl Sweatshirt - Earl
At first glance, every aspect of 15 year old Earl Sweatshirt's debut song "Earl" seems to be aimed at terrifying the parents of Middle America. With a style that is likely to draw comparisons to a young Marshall Mathers (or perhaps more accurately, Chris Palko), Earl spits raunchy, violent, occasionally juvenile lyrics that fall well into NC-17 territory. Add to that a video as disturbing as anything in Larry Clark's oeuvre, featuring teens overdosing on a concoction of malt liquor, weed, codeine and cough syrup - not to mention a scene or two of self mutilation - and the only thing preventing this kid from generating a perfect storm of parental outrage is any sort of mainstream exposure.
Get past the shock of hearing a 15 year old rhyme about sodomy and murder, however, and there's a surprisingly competent emcee to be found. As he matures and learns the value of subtlety (something sorely lacking on his mixtape, for example, which includes tracks named "epaR" and "Kill"), I suspect we'll be hearing a lot more from him.
Video snagged from Rafi and Tumblin' Erb.
7/8/2010 5:15:51 PM posted by Fresh