Album Review: Earl Sweatshirt - I Don't Like Shit. I Don't Go Outside.

First and foremost, fuck 2015.

It’s pretty early for me to write off an entire year like this, but once you’ve cradled the lifeless body of a member of your family in your arms, there isn’t much that’s going to make things any better, no matter if there is still, like, nine months left before this shit show is over.

Sorry.

One of my rabbits passed away on February 22^nd. It was completely unexpected and it was horrible. We’ve been through loss before, and I’ve written extensively about it around this place (and elsewhere too) but neither my wife nor myself were prepared to handle it again, and both of us our on some “True Detective” McConnaughy-level “everything is meaningless” nihilistic shit right now because of this.

Earl Sweatshirt hasn’t been outside in a minute. He confesses that by the time the fourth track, “Grief,” arrives on his second major label album, the aptly, and perfectly, titled I Don’t Like Shit. I Don’t Go Outside. Admittedly I slept on his debut, 2013’s Doris. I reread my piece on it, since that was a long time ago, and I’ve slogged through, like 200+ albums since then. At the time I said liked the beats, but I couldn’t identify with Earl as a rapper.

Living up to its title, I Don’t Like Shit sounds like a nightmare stumbling around in the darkness. It’s a relentless, claustrophobic listen—the beats are ominous and unnerving, and Earl, who on “Grief” says he “livin what I wrote” sounds like he hasn’t seen sunlight in days.

At 21, in an interview with NPR (go figure) Earl says that he’s “grown.” Maybe he’s no longer the kid from the Odd Future collective that was sent away to a boarding school for at-risk kids, missing the rest of his clique’s moment in the sun. Maybe he’s no longer the 19 year old with his eyes closed on the cover of Doris, or the troubled teen who released Earl as a mixtape in 2010.

At 21, Earl is far from old, but on I Don’t Like Shit, he’s fucking tired of bullshit. You can hear it in his low, stream of consciousness delivery—sometimes slow, sometimes breathlessly delivered, like he is desperate to get his point across. You can hear it when he talks about missing his grandmother, about drinking too much and taking too many pills, in how he hates dealing with fame but he loves the fact that he’s made money from rapping.

Possibly distancing himself from the Odd Future collective (none of the other members appear on I Don’t Like Shit in guest spots), Earl continues to progress as an artist. It’s an impressive album—and outside of the stellar production work (the codeine drip, warbled beats of “Grief” are astounding in and of themselves), and Earl’s commendable earnestness in his delivery—what may be the most impressive thing is the fact that it’s an incredibly existential, nihilistic experience—Earl sets a tone early on and never lets up. And while an album like Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (also a surprise Internet release, much like this album) is being touted for its larger social ideas, I Don’t Like Shit is focused on one’s self.

It’s also impressive that in being an existential listen, it’s not too smart for its own good—it’s not thinking person’s hip hop like A Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def, or what The Roots used to be like before they were domesticated by Jimmy Fallon. Earl is clever on this album, but he’s still got both hands in the streets: it’s gritty, violent, depraved, and profane.

The only problem with I Don’t Like Shit is that it’s too short—ten songs, many of them just over a minute long, totaling a little over a half hour in running time. But maybe that’s just long enough. Maybe you don’t want too much of a good thing, especially if the good thing is such a demanding listen. There’s no radio friendly song on I Don’t Like Shit.  Yes, sure, some of the production creates memorable beats, and the call/response of “Sweat (sweat)/Shirt (shirt)” on “Mantra” is catchy—this is meant to be ingested as a whole.

In 2013, I wondered about how memorable Doris was going to be, and if it’s something we’d still be talking about in years to come. I honestly don’t remember anything off of that album—perhaps it had to do with the lack of cohesion from having too many cooks in the kitchen when it came to producing. In the same NPR interview, Earl said he feels like this album is really his debut, which is maybe why in between the album’s first and second track, a voice says “And now, a formal introduction.”

If this is serving as a formal introduction to Earl Sweatshirt, I Don’t Like Shit. I Don’t Go Outside shows Earl as a fearless talent. It’s an album that is speaking volumes to me right now at this point in my life—maybe the title has something to do with that. Maybe we all have an element to Earl Sweatshirt in us—constantly wanting to grow past what we used to be; and more importantly—tired of all the fucking bullshit.

If there’s a thesis statement for 2015, it’s this album.

I Don't Like Shit. I Don't Go Outside  is available now as a digital download with a physical release in April, via Columbia.