I Don't Like Shit: I Don't Go Outside

Earl Sweatshirt finally reconciles those influences and the voices inside his own head on sophomore effort I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside.

He’s stripped his simultaneously fascinating and off-putting style down considerably without diluting its effect, jettisoning the loopy abstractions and lurid detail of Doris in favor of a commanding iciness.

This album is perfect for those days when you just want to keep to yourself, when you feel like no one can be trusted. It's for anyone who has ever had the desire to forget their responsibilities and just make some damn music.

At just under a half hour, it’s even more understated than its predecessor, with fewer guests, almost no outside producers, less variety--less everything, really. That may sound like a downgrade, but it’s not, since here the anti-spectacle becomes a kind of spectacle of its own, as Earl tests how far his music can retreat into itself.

IDLSIDGO is monumental in its willingness to just be a great rap album. [May 2015, p.59]

This portrait of the artist might be a gloomy, oppressive one but it’s grimly fascinating nevertheless.

I Don't Like Shit is heavy and lacks much hope, and yet it communicates these feelings with such skill and artful understanding that it still fills the soul.

I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside is an exceptionally realised and meaningful work from an artist looking well beyond turn up culture in the pursuit of something deeper and longer lasting.

Here, he ratchets that up another notch, attacking familiar concepts (wantonly commercial rappers, his complicated relationship with his mother, the push and pull of celebrity) with seasoned vigour.

A bleakly beautiful collection of compelling brevity, and while it exercises several demons across its ten tracks, it remains very much possessed by a singular spirit: that of an artist continuing to rise, even if he has to dig down uncommonly deep before springing past his peers.

I Don't Like S#%! sees Earl continuing to mature and grow as an artist.

Nothing is forced in his rhymes; his lyricism is so dense and acrobatic that his freestyle vibe is all the more impressive.

Not only does it reinforce that Earl is a capable lyricist, but that he’s growing his legs as a producer. It’s also an album where you can tell the artist found his voice, finally overcoming the pressures of expectation.

The album staggers by quickly, making it easy to miss a lacerating line here or clever double entendre there. In that respect, it lends itself well to multiple listens.

In honest and raw fashion, Earl Sweatshirt unmasks both sides of success.

[A] taut, very good sophomore studio album.

His self-expression is supported by an album mostly produced by him (a.k.a.. randomblackdude) and Left Brain, where the entire production is minimal, dark and contains rare interludes. It's the glue that holds all his confessions and retrospective bars together.

There’s usually only so much of the Odd Future aesthetic one can take before the darkness becomes overwhelming, and so a sub-40 minute runtime is perfect. Never in any danger of overstaying his welcome, Kgositsile shows an overall maturity on Outside that suggests great things in his future.

On an album as free of frill as it is of gimmicks, Earl Sweatshirt lets his music stand on its own merits.

Earl is carefully whittling away at the proclivities he's always had, remaining confident that he’ll light upon something that feels fresh and honest. So far, he's right.

There's a fair bit of tension in his rhymes and it works for him. Earl upholds a dangerous, unpredictable presence--when he slurs “step into the shadows, we can talk addiction” in “Grief” there aren't many who would take up the offer--but at times he holds himself wide open.

This album is about self-realization, unbarred honesty, and the act of becoming transparent to those around you. Earl is stepping up by letting his guard down when trapped in the walls of his mind.

Within these sparse, Rothko-esque works the artist dedicates deep, unflinching energy to documenting and hopefully exorcising his woes (or at least understanding them), delivering lines with wondrous cadence, zipping with a sing-song musicality that illuminates what surrounds it.

I Don't Like Shit may be a master class in ominous mood-setting and a cutting excavation of a wounded psyche, but it also reveals that Earl is at his best when he engages the outside world rather than getting mired in his own emotional claustrophobia.

It's amazing that music so claustrophobic can be this engrossing.

It's clearer now than ever that Earl Sweatshirt doesn't care for your expectations, and that he's at his brilliant best when refusing to cater to them.