In 2018, Earl Sweatshirt released his highly anticipated album, Some Rap Songs. It was very well received among fans and critics, however it was a massive change of pace from his last two albums. Some Raps Songs takes a unique and refreshing approach to rap as a genre. Melodic and mesmerizing beats that sound like jazz music if it was written by Jackson Pollock replace the stereotypical base booming trap beats that have become extremely popular in 2019. The braggadocious and bland subjects that most rappers talk about is substituted with much more emotionally revealing lyrics that sound almost like poetry. Earl really pushed himself outside of his comfort zone into an unknown territory and it really pays off.
However, If you look more deeply into the album and the people that Earl collaborated on SRS (Standing on The Corner and Navy Blue, to name a few) and who he brought with him on tour (Liv.e and MIKE) you can start to see that this new type of rap was not Earl’s idea.
There are actually a bunch of different artists who have been making music that could be categorized in this subgenre of experimental rap. This type of music has been around for a lot longer than people think, but Earl really brought it into the conversation of mainstream music. The purpose of this playlist is to highlight some of those lesser known artists.
Some experimental hip-hop artists I recommend are:
Mavi
El Toro Combo Meal
Daylight savings
Sense
Eye/I and I/Nation
Liv.E
Powaline
Sweat (charla borracha)
Pray W/ Pink Siifu
O.M.M.
Needyougone
Slausone Malone/Standing on the corner
BNS
Won’t Bleed me: The sequel
Smile 4
Ttrabul
Smile 2
Mike
Grabba
Like my mama
It’s like Basketball
Mother of God
Rottweiler
Pink Siifu