Earl Sweatshirt — SICK!

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Earl Sweatshirt doesn’t want to be the person he was a decade ago. (Can you blame him? Neither do I.) In fact, Earl doesn’t even want to be the same person he was one album ago.

His constant self-reinvention is one of his most impressive qualities as an artist — every album in his discography sounds distinct, but remains unmistakably “Earl.” He doesn’t switch up his sound to follow trends in the industry, he does it because he’s maturing as a person and as an artist.

“I wasn’t about to catch myself doing the same shit for too long,” Earl told Rolling Stone. “You can’t do that.”

While growing older and wiser has colored all his output following his forced hiatus in Samoa, it’s the experience of living through the COVID-19 pandemic that has provided the backbone for his latest album and ushered in a new era for the LA-based artist.

The cover itself shows a plaster mold of Earl, surrounded on all sides by responses to illness. There are home remedies, such as garlic and sage, as well as modern pills and a medical mask. But it’s not just an aesthetic, the pandemic runs deep throughout the album’s lyrical content. “Old Friend,” “Sick!” and “Tabula Rasa” contain the most explicit references to COVID, but you can feel its presence everywhere.

And yet, Earl never sounds preachy on SICK!. Even though he’s using the album as a way to process his feelings about the pandemic, fatherhood, fame and more, he’s still doing it with dizzying displays of internal rhymes and double entendres that would do DOOM proud. Some of the lyrics are so good I was surprised I had never heard them before, namely the “Five O’s on me like the Olympics” bar from “2010” — a triple entendre! Don’t overlook “Lye,” either, in which Earl uses excerpts from The Autobiography of Malcolm X to explore his relationship with loving natural hair.

It’s not just the lyrical content on SICK! that shines, but the flows, too. In 2015, it was almost jarring to hear Earl use an up-tempo triplet flow on “DNA”. But in 2022, when he borrows a Lucki flow on “Sick!,” it feels just as natural as when he wore his MIKE influence on his sleeve throughout 2018’s Some Rap Songs. Maybe this is why Earl is capable of matching the oddball energy of the Bruiser Brigade on “Visions” just as well as he can spit a verse that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Griselda track on “Tabula Rasa.”

Standing at just 10 tracks and 24 minutes long, each song has only one verse by Earl, but nothing about SICK! feels rushed or incomplete. In a year that saw a number of fantastic albums from top-tier lyricists — JID, Black Thought, Lupe Fiasco, Pusha T, Black Star, Billy Woods and more — SICK! is still uniquely intricate while remaining easily listenable. There are no bad beats on the album, but Black Noi$e comes through as the MVP, knocking the final two tracks out of the park. “Titanic” is perplexing in its catchiness.

The Earl Sweatshirt of 2010 could not have made SICK! and the Earl Sweatshirt of 2022 would not want to make EARL. And I would have it no other way. With SICK!, Earl has decidedly entered a new chapter in his artistic career, while still remaining true to his roots. A full decade after he exploded onto the scene as a driving force behind Odd Future’s popularity, Earl Sweatshirt remains a perennial album of the year contender, as SICK! shows.

Favorite Lyrics

Five O’s on me like the Olympics/ Pure gold, somethin’ told me, “Don’t mix it” (“2010’’) Can’t go out sad, can’t go outside no more, ’cause n—-s sick, ayy (“Sick!”) The madness method rampant these days, I let the panic pass me (“Tabula Rasa”) Sweatshirt, ’cause you know how revenge is best served/ Cold dish (“Titanic”)

Talking Points

How has the album aged as COVID has continued to be a part of our lives? Do you prefer Earl rapping Black Noi$e/Navy Blue/The Alchemist beats or his own production? What sources do you think Earl will draw inspiration from on his next project? How does “Visions” compare to Earl’s other Zelooperz collaboration, “Easter Sunday 97”? How does “Tabula Rasa” compare to Earl’s other Armand Hammer collaboration, “Falling Out the Sky”? Do you prefer shorter, 30-minute albums like SICK! or longer, 60-minute albums like Future’s latest?