Free(d) Earl

                                    Earl Sweatshirt (left) and Jason Dill (courtesy of Epicly Later'd)

One in the morning at The Scoot Inn and Captain Murphy (Flying Lotus’ rap alter ego) comes on stage quite collected, as if set times weren't running into the wee small ones. He picks up a mic and says, simply, "Introducing Earl Sweatshirt," and out comes the man - er, boy - that's been hyped to stratospheric proportions since Odd Future began their takeover of the rap underground two years ago.

On stage, he looked vaguely nervous, as if worried that the crowd – prepped by an evening of indie rock from the likes of Mac Demarco, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and DIIV - might not respond to his bombastic rap attack. But from his bone skinny frame boomed a thunderous and confident voice, shaking the crowd from its sleepy state. Earl performed material from his upcoming debut album Doris, including the new single “Whoa,” all over the masterful beats laid down by FlyLo.

To finish his set, Sweatshirt brought out the eponymous "Earl," the song that launched a hundred thousand “Free Earl” chants (Earl was across the globe during Odd Future’s 2011 hype tsunami, at an at-risk boarding school in Samoa). On it, the young rapper displays his knack for lyrical content and internal rhyming that makes his brand of rap so simultaneously offensive and extraordinary:

Stop screamin’ bitch, you shouldn’t be that alarmed

When big lips is in the attic armed with an addict’s arm

Hearing Earl navigate his insane rhythms with incredible ease it’s clear that if Frank Ocean is the creative powerhouse of the Odd Future collective, Earl is a close second. And while the power of a young voice has never been lost on the rap community (Nas recorded Illmatic at the age of nineteen), Earl’s lyrical command at the age of eighteen is undeniably impressive.