Album Review // Earl Sweatshirt // Live Laugh Love

Tan Cressida / Warner Records

4 / 5 Stars

Synonymous with wooden plaques and towel racks, "Live, Laugh, Love" has become a platitude. However, for 31-year-old Thebe Kgositsile, known as Earl Sweatshirt, the oft-memed expression represents a new lease on life. More than any release in Earl's 15-year career, Live Laugh Love is the antithesis of the 2018 album Some Rap Songs. A reaction to his father's passing, that project was an emotional outlet for the rapper: grief, malaise, and impostor syndrome permeated each track. Seven years later, though, Earl is at a different place. Now a husband and a father, his existential pain has given way to a joy for existence. Over chopped '70s gospel and soul samples, Earl leisurely waxes on about his new life: taking time to relax, watching his son crawl around, and enjoying his surroundings. The morose lyricism of the artist's past has dissipated: near-dark Novembers replaced with sunshiny summers. For the first time in his career, Thebe feels at peace.