The missing rapper has been the subject of 'Free Earl!' chants for months. Now, a magazine claims to have tracked him down
Earl Sweatshirt has apparently been found. A new report claims to have busted open Odd Future's greatest secret, discovering the whereabouts of the much-hyped hip-hop crew's second most famous rapper. Earl is alive and he's in Samoa. Possibly.
Los Angeles's Odd Future are a gang of a dozen teens ? rappers, producers, singers and skaters ? who have spent the past year becoming the hottest thing in music. With free mixtapes and incendiary gigs, the group have been billed as "the new Wu-Tang"; they were the talk of this year's SXSW and have allegedly inspired a label bidding war. A few of their members ? Tyler the Creator, Frank Ocean, the duo Mellowhype ? have signed deals. But it has been months since fans glimpsed Earl Sweatshirt, the crew's secret weapon ? and its most gifted rhymer. Members of Odd Future have been cagey about Earl's whereabouts, with rumours of bootcamp or jail, turning "Free Earl!" into a rallying cry.
On 14 April, Complex magazine claimed to have succeeded where hundreds of bloggers and tweeters have failed by tracking Earl down. Following a clue in a new song by Odd Future's Domo Genesis and Hodgy Beats, in which they concluded that Earl had been captured by "the fucking Samoans", and some Facebook sleuthing, Complex were led to the Coral Reef Academy, a "therapeutic centre" in American Samoa. And there, it seems, was Earl ? aka Thebe Kgositsile ? smiling among the students at a photo-op with US ambassador David Huebner.
Odd Future's response was quick and, er, contradictory. "Sick As Fuck," wrote Tyler the Creator, Odd Future's de facto leader. "That Complex Shit Is False Info. Sucks Waking Up To Some Shit Like That." But other members of the crew acknowledged the report was correct. "Fuck. That's really him," wrote Mike G. "OK ... You know where he is now. Stop fucking asking." Taking to Twitter, Syd the Kid summed up Odd Future's consternation: "the only reason its annoying is cuz EARL IS STILL NOT BACK, AND THAT ARTICLE WONT BRING HIM BACK, so shut the fuck up." Even Tyler eventually came around. "Fucking Creeps, Did All That For A Nigga That You Don't Even Know," he wrote later in the day. "Can't Even Respect My; His; Or His Mom Privacy."
Huebner's photo suggests Earl was at Coral Reef on 13 September 2010. But it's not clear whether he is still in attendance, still in Samoa, or back in the US. And if he completed the Coral Reef programme, a "treatment programme for at-risk teenage boys", it remains to be seen whether he has been cured of his love of music, skateboarding, and rapping about ultraviolence. For the moment, the only statement that seems appropriate is: "Free Earl!" Hopefully, we'll hear more from him soon.
jd salinger l\'il wayne emma watson janet jackson willie nelson
No comments:
Post a Comment