Los Angeles, CA · rap · abstract hip-hop

Earl Sweatshirt

1 upcoming festival

Compresses more into two minutes than most rappers manage in ten — dense, muttered writing over loops that sound like they're decaying in real time.

Earl Sweatshirt is the recording name of Thebe Kgositsile, a rapper and producer born in 1994 and raised in Los Angeles. He first drew attention as a teenage member of Odd Future, releasing the mixtape Earl in 2010 before spending a period at a school in Samoa. His father was the South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile.

His albums include Doris, I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside, Some Rap Songs and Sick!, and across them his writing has grown denser and more compressed while the production has moved toward short, murky loops, often self-produced. Tracks are frequently under two minutes, with the vocal buried close to the beat rather than sitting on top of it.

rapabstract hip-hop