EARL SWEATSHIRT

Some Rap Songs

DENSE and off-kilter, 24-year-old rapper Earl Sweatshirt has underground hip-hop on lock. The son of a poet and a law professor, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he is a wordsmith. However, on his new album Sweatshirt most often opts for an economy of words, a “less is more” approach. He’s also known for his imaginative style and emotional lyrics, both of which are on show here. And he is not one to shy away from the hardest topics. He tackles mourning deaths in his family on Peanuts, a poignant, grief-filled and heavy song. And on Playing

Possum, he blends public recordings of his parents to collage them into a song (his father’s recent death making the performance all the more chilling). However, it’s not all doom and gloom. December 24 is the most traditional-sounding beat on the album and it gives him a solid backbone on which to flex some muscles and show off a bit. He is razor-sharp. It’s a tune with brevity. On Veins he takes a look at politics, but doesn’t dwell there too long except to point out the he is “stuck in Trumpland watching subtlety decay”. Musically the album has a vintage feel, with short loops and samples laid over low-key or even muffled beats.

Red Water takes these ideas further. If you told me Sweatshirt was working in one room while a mate bootlegged the song from another room, I’d believe it. The scratchy, hissing, popping noises feel dusty. It’s a contrast to the songs on either side of it, which adds to the story of this impressive 15-song, 25-minute project.