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Tabula rasa lyrics earl6/24/2023 Tempos and aesthetics change from song to song, sometimes from verse to verse. The beats are split evenly between the lo-fi-adjacent work he’s favored for the past five years and the darker side of contemporary trap preferred by artists like Lucki (who Earl’s produced for in the past) and Young Nudy. He makes rewiring a song as it’s playing out-and keeping pace with world-class talents like billy woods and ELUCID of Armand Hammer-look easy.ĭuality-nurturing new life while surrounded by death, reconciling old actions with new perspectives-powers the album’s every thought and action. The verse that closes out “Tabula Rasa” is a technical powerhouse Earl stagger-steps through the crevices of Theravada and Rob Chambers’ creaky beat, elongating words and phrases for emphasis and creating his own carefully sewn pockets. “Titanic” is a truncated retelling of Earl’s return from Samoa in 2011 that flips references to the late MF DOOM and the biblical Book of Daniel into a tense collage of memories. His writing has only grown more concise and his sharp wit and varied delivery conjure detailed images. Regardless of the subject, it’s still a marvel to hear Earl rap. “This game of telephone massive/I do what I have to with the fragments,” he says on “Tabula Rasa.” It’s urgent and calming all at once. Dread of COVID dovetails with the album’s broader understanding of truth as the remedy for whatever ails. It’s what inspired him to scrap a more “optimistic” 19-track version of the project: “This has been another crash course in the fact that this shit ain’t about me no more,” he recently told Rolling Stone. COVID looms over every song, with overt references to masks, vaccines, and isolation throughout, but the responsibility he feels for his son drives his response to this strange and perilous present. Two of the album’s major influences-new fatherhood and the ongoing pandemic-represent Earl’s own pondering of the orbs of life and death. The raps are as thoughtful and tightly coiled as ever, but now he’s clearer and more confident, approaching his past and his future with hope. On Sick!, the nuggets are gleaming right on the surface. “Link up for some feasible methods to free yourself/Split it with my hand like cigarills.” Earl used to make you sift through the mud to find the gold. “I came from out the thicket smiling,” he says on the opening “Old Friend,” like a man home from war. Those thoughts haven’t gone away on Earl’s newest album, Sick!, but there’s more talk of acceptance, balance, and moving forward in the face of new challenges.
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