The launch party for Earl Sweatshirt’s sixth album was, by all accounts, a confounding affair. Some attenders came away convinced that Live Laugh Love contained guest appearances not merely by Vince Staples, but actor/rapper Donald Glover and comedian Dave Chappelle (it doesn’t, although all three contributed to a fanzine produced for the event). At one juncture, the DJ announced the arrival of “my brother, Earl Sweatshirt” before the appearance of someone who was visibly not Earl Sweatshirt – he was Asian, and apparently goes under the winning stage name Gary Underpants – performing a succession of Earl Sweatshirt songs. In the aftermath, at least one online music title didn’t seem sure whether it actually was a launch party for a new album or “an elaborate prank”: would a man whose grim worldview seemed summed up by the title of 2015’s I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside really release something called Live Laugh Love?
Of course, Earl Sweatshirt has form when it comes to confounding album launches: Sweatshirt’s last album, 2023’s Voir Dire, was secretly available on YouTube under a fake name for at least three years before it was officially released, according to its producer the Alchemist. And more broadly, this kind of thing fits with Earl Sweatshirt’s idiosyncratic approach to his career.
