5 Years After Some Rap Songs
By: Ant Millan
It has been five years since Earl Sweatshirt’s magnum opus, Some Rap Songs, was first released. A radical departure from his prior discography, SRS found Earl exploring the limits of what can be done within rap. Taking influence from the very alternative hip-hop scene Earl helped create, the album abandons typical song structure in favor of disjointed, murky vocals over industrial, lo-fi instrumentals.
Brevity is a notable theme present on Some Rap Songs. Most songs on the album clock in at about a minute, and Earl’s verses rarely run for the entire runtime, giving him very little time to make a lasting impact. Earl took this challenge and delivered some of his most poignant writing, detailing his depression during the time between this album and his last. In order to convey his mind state, Earl tones down the technical rhyme schemes and flows that he was notorious for in his Odd Future days in favor of a more spoken-word style that feels very intimate. The dissonance between the instrumentals and the verses creates a more intense focus on the lyrics. In addition, The lyricism indulges in more typical, vernacular language, which reads like poems about mental illness.
The intro, “Shattered Dreams,” opens with “Imprecise words,” spoken by James Baldwin in his 1962 speech, “The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity.” In the speech, he expresses his distaste for labels such as “artist, integrity, peace-loving and integration” because these words are universally meaningless. The weight of these words is determined based on the experiences of the individual and how they have lived these titles. All this to say, words can never be enough to explain complex concepts like emotions, or in Earl’s case depression. Earl learns from this statement, and elicits emotions from the listener using the instrumental, flow, and lyricism.
When words aren’t enough, Some Rap Songs uses its instrumental selections to communicate feelings Earl can’t. Every song on the album employs hypnotic sample loops, many of which make use of auto-tuned vocal chops and heavily adulterated instruments. For example, “Peanut” uses out-of-key piano notes and a distorted synth to communicate the confusion surrounding Earl in the wake of his father’s death.
The album closes on an instrumental track that samples Earl’s uncle, Hugh Masekela, named “Riot.” The song is a tribute to Hugh, who passed away in 2018. In the decision to close the album on an instrumental track, Earl has enforced brevity to the fullest extent. Once he reflects on his father’s death, he has nothing else to say. He chooses to end the album with an optimistic homage to someone who was family.
Some Rap Songs is a watershed moment for hip-hop; having taken elements from alternative rap and experimenting with the formula, Earl created a sonic look into depression in his life. Instrumentally the album is unlike most releases in 2018, focused on looping backtracks and concise lyricism - the album’s mood is heavily dictated by these instrumentals. Since its release, this album has gone on to continue pushing alternative and abstract rap forward, providing a benchmark for the genre.