Earl Sweatshirt

It’s been over two years since Californian rapper Earl Sweatshirt appeared at Aussie festival Splendour In The Grass along with a handful of club shows. Now, Frontier Touring and Handsome Tours are thrilled to confirm his return for a must-see show in Melbourne for one night only in January.

Along with supporting British indie trio mainstays The xx on their East Coast headline run this Summer, the just announced Melbourne show will be fans only chance to see Earl Sweatshirt live. 

Starting out in 2009 as one of the youngest members of hip hop collective Odd Future, Sweatshirt toured and wrote with the likes of Frank Ocean and Tyler, the Creator before gaining solo attention just a year later with debut mixtape Earl.

The musician’s first record Doris, released in 2013, sparked international recognition with its deeply personal lyrics and highly technical elements. Reaching the top position on the Australian iTunes chart, the album is laden with gems featuring members from his former group. ‘Sunday’ with Frank Ocean packs an emotionally raw punch, while ‘Whoa’ featuring Tyler, the Creator balances bass heaviness with delicate keyboard.

Sweatshirt continued to push boundaries, following up this initial success with self-produced second release I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside, which was named Rolling Stone’s eighth best rap album of 2015. Lo-fi instrumentals paired with the musician’s biting stream of thought come together on lead single ‘Grief’, which entered at number four on the Billboard + Twitter Top Tracks chart.

‘It feels like the realisation of a voice that, in some sense, he's had an APB out on since his first record: one that is both fluid and all angles…’ – Pitchfork

‘Earl Sweatshirt keeps deepening his game – spooling out dense, mordant rhymes over zombifically blunted tracks as he somehow sucks you into his sunless reality.’ – Rolling Stone.

The rapper’s studio prowess is backed up by an energetic live presence, cultivated from both supporting names such as Eminem and Solange Knowles as well as his own headline tours. He last captured young Australian audiences at Splendour, along with three sideshows, in 2015.

‘Describing each of these performances individually seems redundant considering Sweatshirt rapped each with the tenacity of a performer far beyond his 21 years.’ – The Music.

‘Smiling, laughing and loving the audience, Earl Sweatshirt has well and truly emerged from the Odd Future shadow, and is paving his way to the status of living legend.’ – Consequence of Sound.

Hard at work on his third album, Sweatshirt has been giving fans a taste of the upcoming release out on the road. The musician launched latest song ‘Hat Trick’ at Detroit’s Movement Festival in May, where the track’s simple rhythms let his brutally honest rapping take centre stage. Don’t miss out on your chance to see Sweatshirt when he returns to our shores, armed with new tunes as well as fan favourites!