Earl Sweatshirt makes it into the major publications’ favourites lists in 2018 without airs and graces. Fact Vinyl Factory Pitchfork lists »Some Rap Songs« among the best albums of the year and primarily attributes this to the authentic roughness of a production that seeks to gain favour with lo-fi aesthetics and a woozy living room atmosphere. As on the predecessor, Earl Sweatshirt’s deadpan raps are still concise in their absent, sometimes almost slurred articulation. Whereas »I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside« still sounded powerful and compact despite this, frayed instrumental samples, poems by Earl’s parents, creaking beats and grey noise now dominate. In the twinkling of »Cold Summers« or the confused toy beat of »Eclipse«, these rap songs seem aimless and dreamy, hence repeatedly giving the impression of being memories set to music. This is certainly intentional, but as a postmodern nostalgia flash, it simply comes across as too intentional. In the ghetto aphorisms of »Nowhere2go« and the much too short »December 24« sound washed out, barely tangible, fragmentarily perceived like a commercial in half-sleep – initiations of vaporwave not always excluded. But perhaps it is also these quasi provisionally produced arrangements that contribute to the obvious fascination of »Some Rap Songs«. For admittedly, this album is in some way unconventional and adventurous, in spite of the verbal malapropism of well-known hip-hop tropes.
Some Rap Songs
