By Briana Peters – Staff Reporter

Growing from his immature, wild concepts of music, Earl Sweatshirt’s, new album, “…I Don’t Go Outside” reflects the depression and grief in the current era of his life. As a long awaited follow-up to his album “Doris”, Earl released the album on March 22 at 11:30 p.m.

Earl Sweatshirt, 21, born Thebe Neruda Kgositsile, was discovered by Tyler, The Creator in 2009 through his MySpace account. In 2009, Earl, then known as Sly Tendencies, was working on his mixtape “Kitchen Cutlery,” but never released or finished it due to joining Odd Future. He has released two albums prior to “…I Don’t Go Outside”. His debut studio album “Earl” was self-released on March 31, 2010, and his second album, “Doris,” was released on August 20, 2013. That album was released after he went to a youth program for rehabilitation on the island of Samoa.

To sum up the album title, Earl Sweatshirt does not like anything and does not go outside. The 10-track album begins with the swaggering, organ-driven opener “Huey,” and within the first bar of the song, Earl’s voice is heard as legitimate and serious, yet self-effacing. Within the tracks, Earl’s maturity and expression of his current battle with drug abuse and depression is revealed. On March 17, 2014, he released the song “Grief,” which is a pure example of this revealing. The heavy, grim lyrics of the song describe his drug usage as an escape to deal with his depression and loneliness. Also, he makes several references about people turning into “snakes” and using him for his fame, which is why he doesn’t go outside anymore.

Besides the consistent grief-stricken remarks in his new songs, Earl makes an approach of recognizing his fortune throughout his music career, in a non-self-promoting type of way. Enough though he is struggling with multiple issues, he manages to see the good in all of it such as his fans and how far he has made it in the music industry. He went from rapping about wild, vulgar, offensive subjects to rapping about his everyday life, and relating to others that are in the same boat as him.

Overall, this album is a huge step up for Earl Sweatshirt, not only because he is being real with his music, but also because he has matured so much since “Doris.” His new ideas and concepts are extremely brilliant and relatable.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars