(The full name is Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All Don’t Give a Fuck Loiter Squad-although that’s just one of many full names.) The “Earl” video, which has now been viewed more than three million times, led neophytes into the sprawling but insular world of Odd Future. stands for Odd Future, the hip-hop crew that comprises most of the young people in the music video. Go on, suck it up-but hurry, I got nuts to bust andīutts to fuck and ups to chuck and sluts to fuckin’ uppercut. The song, which is called “Earl,” turns scenes of horror-movie hedonism into tongue-twisting provocations:

His voice has a pubescent twang, but he sounds disconcertingly calm and clear, especially given his chosen subject matter. This was, by the way, a rap video, and it’s no small tribute to Earl Sweatshirt to say that his rapping was not in the least upstaged by the images that accompanied it. Earl spits out two teeth and pulls out a fingernail by the end, nearly everyone is catatonic, or foaming at the mouth, or both. They hallucinate, tumble off their boards, fight, convulse, and bleed. After choking down as much as they can, Earl and his friends grab their skateboards and head out into Los Angeles. A prescription-pill bottle is emptied into a blender, along with cough syrup, malt liquor, and something that looks like marijuana the result is a nauseous gray-brown slurry that swiftly proves its efficacy. In the video, he seems to be shorter than most of his friends, who join him on a psychedelic adventure that is certainly-though not obviously-staged. He was sixteen then, with an oblong face, camel-brown skin, and wide lips. The video that made Earl Sweatshirt a star lasts only two and a half minutes, and when it appeared on the video-sharing site Vimeo, on May 26, 2010, most viewers probably didn’t know what to make of Earl Sweatshirt, or why he was in a hair salon, beneath a dryer hood, especially since his head was shaved nearly bald.

Tyler the creator songs about death