The first person in line for the Earl Sweatshirt show in Mesa, Arizona arrived at 1:40 p.m. and was most likely in high school. By 6:40 p.m. there were about 200 people—mostly teens with bucket hats, white skin and adrenaline— lined up about 50 yards deep past the door in front of the closed down store fronts of the strip mall that held the venue Club Red and a KFC. They all wanted to be close to Earl who is a young, mythic figure in rap whose abilities and personality inspires the fandom warranting waiting outside a show five hours before the doors open. Earl is touring his sophomore album I Don’t Like Shit I Don’t Go Outside, which reeks of the nihilism that looks cute on people before they turn 25. Yet, the content on the album isn’t marred by immaturity—it’s an album about growing and breaking up and xanax and depression and the pangs apathy and entropy and willful inertia.
The venue opened at around seven and the audience waited in the front of the stage. The two disc jockeys for the tour came out and tried getting the crowd hype to no avail. They were restless and no beat could pacify the pounding in their adolescent hearts. One of the DJs asked the crowd if they were excited to hear the opener Remy Banks and there was a loud silence. When asked about Earl Sweatshirt the crowd boomed to life. Undeterred by the likely fact that nary a soul in the room knew who he was, Banks jumped on stage with a hood over his Yankees baseball cap pulled low over his brow and began rapping. During his set, Banks rapped over a host of heavy, abrasive beats and played a few songs off his newest mixtape high released that day titled higher. By the end of the set people were recording Banks on their cell phones. Vince Staples stormed the stage after Banks’ set with a letterman and skinny jeans. He played songs from his first mixtape and his most recent critically acclaimed mixtape higher. Though the crowd marginally knew of Vince more than Banks he won them over with his energy. He moved all over the stage and swayed and danced and rapped without an accompanying beat at times. His peak moment came when he played his three best hits in a row—beginning with the chest thumping, hype song Senorita and ending with the introspective Nate.
At the end of Vince’s set he asked if everybody was excited to see Earl. Vince didn’t have to ask again. Earl methodically stepped out of the shadows of backstage and into the arms of applause and cheers from the zealous crowd greeting their hero. He was visibly high and or drunk and was drinking out of a cup with a tan colored liquid on ice during the show. The two of them proceeded to rap their three collaborative pieces: Wool, Centurion and Hive. They have drastically different performance styles. While Vince is all swinging limbs and grins, Earl is slower and doesn’t dance at all. He kind of shuffles around the stage. Earlier in the tour he was sick and it seems like he still might be struggling with it or just faded. After Vince left the stage, Nakel joined Earl and was his hype man as he played three songs off Doris (Pre, Burgundy and Molasses) and then got into his album I Don’t Like Shit I Don’t Go Outside—an album he produced practically all by himself. He ended up playing the entire album and maintained his shuffling, calculated movements throughout. Before playing his weightiest song Grief, he asked the audience if they were feeling pain and after they responded affirmatively he said “fuck your pain.” This wasn’t Earl dismissing their pain, it felt like him saying that he would carry it for the audience. The harrowing Grief track was delivered with the weight that it deserved—his flow was real syrupy and he stayed center stage most of the song. He played the rest of the album at about the same tempo.
Earl finished his album then went into some of his older tracks and two new tracks. The fans—again mostly teens—reacted predictably to the old Earl songs and began moshing. He ended his set with what he called his favorite song —Quest/Power—which was released over the summer and is not on any album. After the set his DJ played Lil B and he put his jacket over his head and smoked a blunt (there were several blunts lit during the show and at one point earlier Remy Banks gave a blunt to the audience) while danced along with NaKel to the song with an enthusiasm he didn’t show much during the set. He is still a young child—a young messiah for some— but he does like some shit despite the evident pain it causes.
Photos by Aaron Rivers
