This is Earl Sweatshirt on “open.” Over a sparse, hypnotic piano production called “Chum,” the 18-year-old Odd Future MVP starts here: “It’s probably been twelve years since my father left / left me fatherlessness / and I just used to say I hate him in dishonest jest / when honestly I miss this nigga like when I was 6 / and every time when I got the chance to say it, I would swallow it.” Damn. He discusses Tyler, the Creator’s big brother role and being “too black for the white kids and too white for the blacks,” spitting it all through effortless-sounding mazes of internal rhymes apt to make a listener issue an additional damn. Matching the introspective (and happily devoid of domestic violence or anything Odd Future-ishly cringe-worthy at all, really) track is a black-and-white clip of Earl floating through darkened streets filled with phantoms and frogs. (What up, Magnolia; what up, Frank Ocean tweeting “chum video gots da toads.”) The video comes from Hiro Murai, who directed David Guetta and Sia’s “She Wolf” as well as the Shins’ “It’s Only Life.” Also: Earl’s album is titled Doris and will be released on Columbia Records some nice day.
