Earl Sweatshirt – Doris (Tan Cressida/Columbia)
Earl Sweatshirt is a smart dude – that much is apparent after listening to his latest album, Doris. It makes sense, considering his mother is a law professor at UCLA, and his absent father is the former poet laureate of South Africa. This album portrays a more personal side of Earl that refers back, on many occasions, to this lineage.
Earl Sweatshirt – Doris (Tan Cressida/Columbia)
Earl Sweatshirt is a smart dude – that much is apparent after listening to his latest album, Doris. It makes sense, considering his mother is a law professor at UCLA, and his absent father is the former poet laureate of South Africa. This album portrays a more personal side of Earl that refers back, on many occasions, to this lineage.
Earl’s soft side can come as a surprise, especially given the shock rap background that allowed Earl and the Odd Future crew to shoot to success, just a few years ago. With the music videos for Sweatshirt’s “Earl” and Tyler, The Creator’s “Yonkers,” the group became your one-stop-shop for pissing off grandmas. But, even then, at the young age of 15, Earl Sweatshirt was bending words through verses like few others in the industry. And then, he was gone. If you haven’t heard the story, it really boils down to the dude’s mom trying to get her teenage son to calm down a bit. I mean, you can’t blame her, have you seen the “Earl” video? I digress. So, she sent him to a school for at-risk boys in Samoa–but not before he had claimed stake as one of the best, and youngest, MCs in the game.
With his return he quickly snagged some feature spots on big name albums, including Flying Lotus’ Captain Murphy project and Frank Ocean’s major-label debut, Channel Orange. And slowly, the whispers started. People wondered: when’s the sophomore album coming from camp Sweatshirt? The announcement of Doris led to a flurry of anticipation around the project.
Well. It’s here. And it’s really, really good.
Not great, though–let’s not get ahead of ourselves. In an unexpected move, Earl has a relatively unknown rapper–who happens to be Frank Ocean’s cousin–SK La’ Flare, open up the album. On “Pre,” SK La’ Flare proves he can hang in the big leagues with his verse, dropping cleverly crafted lines that jump off into Earl’s first appearance.
With Earl’s first line on “Burgundy,” we get the sense of the feel he is going for on this project: “Grandma’s passing, but I’m too busy tryna get this fuckin’ album cracking to see her. So I apologize in advance if anything should happen. And my priorities fucked up, I know it…” A far cry from what we heard on his first album.
The first four songs on Doris go by very quickly, and the way the song to song transitions can be jumpy, but together they build to the meat of the album. Not, however, before you have to listen to Frank Ocean rap. As unpleasant as I found Ocean’s attempt, it didn’t actually bring the album down too much.
Simple and layered production creates an enjoyable base for the lyrics, which are highlight of the album. Aside from a handful of instrumental breaks in “Hive” and “523,” the production usually plays second fiddle. A dark grittiness comes out in much of the album, but it is mixed-up enough to keep the album exciting; the piano in “Burgundy,” the distorted bass of “Hive,” and the triplets in “Hoarse” all make this album easy to listen to all the way though without getting bored. Even with BadBadNotGood, Mac Miller, Breaux, and others flaunting production credits on this album, Earl handles the great majority of the album’s production himself, which is likely what allows Doris to maintain such a consistent sound.
The last two songs on the album, “Hoarse” and “Knight (featuring Domino Genesis),” make for an incredibly enjoyable ending to the project. Earl leaves us with: “So, searching for a way to state it right. Young, black, and jaded, vision hazy strolling through the night.”
I highly suggest you check out this album. At the age of 19, Earl Sweatshirt has time to improve, but there isn’t much that needs to be done. This album blows away recent projects done by industry staples twice his age (I’m looking at you Jay-Z). Take a listen, see for yourself.
