Chance the Rapper and Earl Sweatshirt Are Rap Dads Figuring It Out
On their new albums, two established rappers navigate their 30s, fatherhood, and the next chapter of their careers
Earl Sweatshirt and Chance the Rapper have entered their 30s from opposite sides of the same crossroads. Two prodigiously gifted MCs who were a touch nerdier and wordier than their peers, both got their start during the tail end of the blog era. Earl’s self-titled debut single is structurally and thematically vicious, a winding display of horrorcore aggression cranked to Jackass levels and calcified into pebbles thrown at encroaching adulthood. On his own debut single “Juice,” Chance leaned into a whimsy warped by acid tabs, attempting to create a space where Lion King theatrics, religion, soulful hip-hop, and candy-colored footwork collide. Both possessed a searing self-awareness only exacerbated by their politically and artistically minded parents, and the senses of death lingering over all Black boys from Chicago and Los Angeles.
As their stars rose, and blog pages and Mediafire links turned into late-night TV appearances and high-profile record and licensing deals, they gripped their styles with all their might. Earl, fresh from Samoan boarding school, briefly rejoined Odd Future and burrowed into an increasingly insular musical world, while Chance embraced the crossover appeal that comes from working with gospel singer CeCe Winans, drill pioneer G Herbo, and chip brand Doritos. Chance’s formal debut album, 2019’s The Big Day, was meant to capitalize on this pull with a project that mixed contributions from Gucci Mane, Megan Thee Stallion, Randy Newman, and Shawn Mendes into a concept revolving around the excitement of his wedding day and forthcoming fatherhood. But the album was bloated and lacked the effortless charm of his previous work, and was so derided by critics and fans that it ground his momentum to a halt.
Earl capitalized on his ascent in a different way. Projects like Doris and I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside skewed muddy and introspective, pulling more influence from the East Coast underground than anything from the Odd Future era. But it was 2018’s Some Rap Songs that served as a creative renaissance, a defiantly lo-fi project that cast anxieties and trauma against hazy beats from everyone from Navy Blue to Denmark Vessey to Earl himself. More or less shunning the spotlight, Earl continued down this road, chiseling his writing to the bare essentials while staying tapped in enough to forge creative allegiances with rising figures like Mike, Billy Woods, Pig the Gemini, and Lucki.
At 32 and 31 respectively, Chance and Earl are mirror images of that tender moment when commitment is staring you in the face on their new albums. Both men are rap superstars and young fathers of two, and their records revolve around the complexities of dealing with it all. But while much of Chance’s Star Line exists in and reacts to the wreckage of his divorce from high school sweetheart Kirstin Corley, Earl’s Live Laugh Love is informed by the rapper’s marriage to actress and standup comedian Aida Osman earlier this year. New chapters of life are unfolding, and both men are instilling their deep fear of fucking it up for themselves and their families into the music, to varying degrees of success.
