The house was packed Saturday at the Republic for former OFWGKTA member Earl Sweatshirt and friends. For the past few years Earl has been a crowd attractor doing his solo thing, energizing and entertaining crowds with hit singles and hidden treasures. If you’ve ever heard of Odd Future or know of their exploits and carnal lyrics, Earl was one of the first and most twisted lyricist of the group. Earl doesn’t stray too far from his old style with his own music either. These twisted lyrics matched up with extremely heavy, melodic, and bass heavy beats creates the genre of music that Odd Future began a few years ago. That genre not having a particular title, but in general terms it intertwines elements of extreme teenage angst alongside melodic down tempo beats and an unconventional flow. Earl played mostly from his most recent album IDLSIDGO (I don’t like shit, I don’t go out), which is his second solo album, as well as dipped into Doris for a few tracks but was reluctant to play any of the major Odd Future hits like his title track “Earl”. Of course those Odd Future songs wouldn’t be the same without all the boys in the band but those are some of the crowd favorites.
Earl wasn’t alone on stage for a second, mostly due to his DJ and back-up singer/hype man/side-kick doing their thing but also the openers Remy Banks and Nxworries would come out from time to time. Nxworries consists of Knxwledge (Stones Throw records) and Anderson Paak (Hell Fyre club), with Anderson Paak on the vocals and Knxwledge doing it on the 1’s and 2’s. Anderson Paak was recently featured on multiple songs on Dr. Dre’s album Compton, being one of the few practically no names (compared to Dre) that Dr. Dre featured in the album. Their music is sparse but extremely good, check them out here https://soundcloud.com/stonesthrow/nxworries-anderson-paak-knxwledge-suede.
Although this was one of the last three shows of the tour, the crowd alone was a sign that Earl will be back very shortly so make sure you get a ticket next time the young man is in town.