Earl Sweatshirt at SOMA

Fans lined up outside the concert venue, ready to see artist Earl Sweatshirt perform

Joe Duffy / Asst. A&C Editor / The USD Vista

Over an hour before the show started on Saturday, April 27, people were lined up outside SOMA, a small concert venue right next to Pechanga Arena. At 7 p.m., the doors opened, security started conducting pat-downs and taking tickets, and the line inched closer to the low, steady hum of subwoofers coming from inside the venue. The large group of concert-goers, mostly in their 20s, were waiting to see the rapper Earl Sweatshirt perform on one of the last dates of his “Fire It Up!” tour.

The Los Angeles native, whose given name is Thebe Neruda Kgositsile, first gained popularity at the age of 16 following the release of his debut mixtape, “Earl.” This mixtape brought him praise from critics and fans, as well as scorn from those who found the lyrical content—which referenced drug use, violence, and sexual assault—to be vile and obscene in nature.

The success of the mixtape, in addition to the rising profile of Odd Future—an alternative hip-hop collective that included Earl, Tyler, the Creator, Frank Ocean, and others—made it seem inevitable that “Earl” would hit mainstream popularity. But then, in March of 2010, shortly after the release of “Earl,” he was sent by his mother to a boarding school in Samoa for at-risk teens, igniting a “Free Earl” movement amongst his fans that called for the rapper’s return.

Since returning to the United States in 2012, Earl has been a highly scrutinized figure. He has retained the young cult following from his Odd Future days, while also branching out and gaining new fans from the releases of projects like “Doris” (2013), “I Don’t Like Sh*t, I Don’t Go Outside” (2015), and, most recently, “Some Rap Songs” (2018).

Music hasn’t been the only thing that’s brought him attention. His relationship with his mother and his struggles with anxiety and depression have been the subjects of much discussion online, and are topics that he has addressed on social media, in interviews, and in his music

The strained relationship the rapper had with his father, the South African poet and political activist Keorapetse Kgositsile, is a subject he often returns to in his work, especially following his father’s death in January 2018. On the track “Playing Possum” off his latest album, Earl samples a speech by his mother and a poetry reading by his father and splices them together; he had planned on presenting the finished song to his father as a reconciliatory gesture, he said in an interview with Vulture, but his father died before he had the chance to do so.

Contrary to the sullen, downcast manner that has generally been a defining part of his public persona, Earl was all smiles on Saturday night. His DJ, Black Noi$e, came to the stage first, accompanied by the New York-based rapper MIKE, who performed a brief but energetic set. He was promptly followed by Liv.E, a Dallas-born musician who had an upbeat but lo-fi style informed by a unique blend of jazz and hip-hop. During her set, Earl came onto the stage, quietly and discreetly, and joined the DJ, smiling, dancing, and bobbing his head back and forth to the music.

After Liv.E finished, Earl took the microphone from her and asked the audience repeatedly to give it up for the two openers and his DJ. Then he jumped right into his set, and the audience, which had been laid-back and calm up to that point, rushed toward the stage. The front of the show was tightly packed, and many people hung near the back, or stood on a bench lining one of SOMA’s walls.

Despite the somber tone of much of Earl’s music, the crowd became lively and energized at curious times; one of the biggest and most aggressive mosh pits of the night, for example, occurred during the song “Grief,” in which Earl raps, “Lately I’ve been panicking a lot / Feeling like I’m stranded in a mob, scrambling for Xanax out the canister to pop / Never getting out of hand / Steady handling my job,” over a dark, jarringly ominous instrumental.  

In his set, Earl performed most of “Some Rap Songs,” as well as a few tracks from his other albums. He also performed a few songs that he had done in collaboration with other artists and producers, such as the track “E. Coli,” which was part of The Alchemist’s 2018 “Bread” EP. He didn’t, however, perform any of the older songs he had made with “Odd Future” or any tracks off “Earl.”

USD senior Scott Hering was in attendance Saturday night, and said that the show was even better than he had expected. 

“I thought the show was great,” Hering said. “It was above my expectations because I thought it would be a short show featuring mainly his new album, but he ended up putting on a good, long performance. The crowd was energized and he played every song I wanted to hear.” 

While Earl initially came out to the stage wearing a grey hoodie with the hood pulled up, 10 minutes into his set, he took the hoodie off. Underneath, he wore an oversized graphic tee shirt that reminded one of the younger, Odd Future-affiliated Earl Sweatshirt, whose wardrobe consisted of Supreme box logo tees, five-panel caps, and crew socks bearing the letters “OF” in the form of a sprinkled donut. Back then, his style was a blend of LA skate rat fashion and the bright, cartoonish aesthetic of Tyler the Creator and the Odd Future collective as a whole.

Yet, the Earl on stage on Saturday night looked vastly different from the one dubbed a teenage-rap phenom nearly a decade ago. In place of a goofy, baby-faced teenager was an artist who seemed more mature and composed than ever. His dreadlocks bounced over his shoulders as he strutted from one end of the stage to the other.

After performing for around an hour and a half, Earl ended the show with “Riot!,” the instrumental track that closes out his most recent album. He stood near the DJ and bounced to the beat of the song until it finished, then set his microphone down and left the stage. Some people headed for the exits, while others stared at the SOMA stage, hoping for an encore. After a few minutes, though, it was apparent that the show really was over, and the remainder of the crowd made for the exits while staff trickled out onto the stage and began packing up the equipment.