If you were of the speculative few who thought Earl Sweatshirt was trying to seperate himself from the former crew and be his own man, sorry but you are wrong. This week he made a debut appearance on Adult Swim's Loiter Squad and dropped a video directed by Wolf Haley to a song produced by Tyler The Creator (same dude, incase you didn't know). With no mention of Tan Cressida (Earl's imprint with Sony) in the credits of "Whoa", we are treated to a tame, but still very much Tyler-influenced spectacle of cross-promoting Loiter Squad's new season and strutting a video lookbook of the Odd Future clothing line.
It's a shame too. "Whoa" is vintage OFWGKTA without the video. Earl's "misadventures of a shit talker" lyrics are intricately woven, bound to give Rap Genius headaches, and read as counter to Earl's claims that those of us who loved his content at 15 won't like him now. Earl brings out the best in Tyler in the studio, always has, but Tyler's taste is an interference when it comes to directing videos (it's just mimicking the Eminem circa "The Real Slim Shady" or "Without Me"). What should be the next step in Earl returning for an official debut ends up being Tyler being in most of the shots and far too much of that weird white dude eating an icecream cone. You put him on an album cover because he's funny looking. We thought it was funny too. Let his awkward aging fade into legend. Don't subject us to more of his terrible whiteness.
Earl Sweatshirt's Doris is out soon.
