Album Review: Live Laugh Love by Earl Sweatshirt

In Live Laugh Love, Earl invites us to witness an artist turning a new leaf while staying true to his core. It’s a sincere celebration of joy and growth from one of rap’s most mercurial voices.

Courtesy of Warner Records.

Best known for the murky introspection of records like Some Rap Songs (2018)—a project that ended his major-label run “in a lo-fi squall of jagged samples, glitching beats, tape hiss and buried vocals,” Earl Sweatshirt has built a reputation as hip-hop’s quiet rulebreaker. On Live Laugh Love, he honors that legacy of raw, avant-garde production and intensely personal lyrics, yet departs from the bleakness of old. The mood here is notably lighter, even sunlit, with heartfelt references to newfound joys like fatherhood, all while keeping the music as odd and esoteric as ever. It’s a head-spinning trip that balances Otherground surrealism with earnest self-reflection, marking a new chapter for Earl without forsaking the essence that made him a cult legend.

Even the album’s title signals Earl’s evolving mindset. Live Laugh Love—a phrase usually seen in kitschy home décor— started off as a tongue-in-cheek joke, a bit of satire from an artist once synonymous with darkness. Earl himself admits, “I named it before I wrote it,” initially intending a critique of the platitude’s irony. But as the project took shape, that irony gave way to genuineness. What began as a prank evolved into “a genuine examination of the nostalgia of joy and the simplicity of genuine connection.” In other words, Earl allowed the cheeky title to guide him toward sincere themes: finding light after years of gloom, appreciating warmth and community, and rediscovering childlike happiness. The conceptual genesis reflects Earl’s growth; he’s still wry and skeptical, but not afraid to embrace the idea of joy earnestly. This unlikely sincerity is woven through the album’s fabric. By reclaiming Live Laugh Love from cliché and infusing it with deeper meaning, Earl creates a conceptual through-line: the idea that even a weary soul can learn to live, laugh, and love again when healing and perspective enter the picture. The title may raise eyebrows given Earl’s famously grim 2015 LP I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside, but it’s ultimately a statement of how far he’s come.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Live Laugh Love is how Earl’s longstanding obsession with language and symbols shapes each track’s creation. He approaches songwriting almost like a mystic crossword, starting with a single word, phrase, or image and building a whole song around it. “Constrictions breed creativity,” Earl explains of his process. He sets up little rules or prompts for himself, much like the divination system of Ifá in Yoruba spirituality, which imposes structured rules on how spirits operate. In Earl’s case, those “rules” might be a specific concept or motif that anchors a song. For example, the track “Tourmaline” began simply as a word that popped into his head. Only later did he discover tourmaline’s spiritual significance as a stone that inspires enlightenment and balance. That serendipity is emblematic of Earl’s method: he channels intuition first and researches later, often finding that the symbol he chose uncannily matches his intentions. Tarot imagery also creeps into the lyrics, notably the Eight of Cups, a card representing the need to walk away from what no longer serves you. Earl wrote that reference before fully knowing its meaning, then realized it perfectly mirrored his message about moving on and staying grounded in everyday life. These spiritual symbols deepen each song, giving the album a subtle mythic undercurrent. They’re not there to be pretentious “Easter eggs” so much as personal guideposts for Earl’s creativity. From Ifá to tarot, Earl uses language and structure the way a poet uses metaphor—to give shape to intuition and to bridge the gap between the sacred and the mundane.

The beauty of Live Laugh Love lies in its juxtaposition of the poetic and the practical. Earl thrives in the tension between the profound and the routine, and this album lives in that alchemy. For every hazy spiritual allegory, there’s a grounding moment of day-to-day realism. On “Tourmaline,” Earl deploys cinematic, protective imagery to explore love and responsibility. Over a looping, melancholic melody, he sing-raps about spiritual protection and his role as a father. The song’s lyrics conjure a scene of safety amidst chaos; he mentions “pitch-black tourmaline towers” as if surrounding his family with protective stone pillars. One can almost visualize Earl standing guard, grounded by the presence of his “sweet child.” By contrast, “Infatuation” shows Earl’s unvarnished humor and practicality. Described by Earl as “a love letter to food,” the track chronicles the very real struggle of getting a decent meal while on tour. It’s a short, cheeky song that finds poetry in the mundane, late-night drive-thru runs, craving comfort food on the road, turning sustenance into a sly metaphor for emotional hunger. Over a lighter, less sinister beat (compared to the preceding tracks), Earl raps with a wink, indulging in playful language about his favorite snacks and the camaraderie of breaking bread with crew members after a show.

Then there’s “Crisco,” one of the album’s standout songs and emotional centerpieces. This track encapsulates the Saturday-night bravado to Sunday-morning regret arc with striking clarity. It opens boisterously—imagine the swagger of a late-night jam, fueled by ego and excess, but by the end, the tone shifts to sobering vulnerability, as if the harsh light of dawn is creeping in. Earl unleashes a relentless, off-kilter flow over a backdrop of choral vocal samples that swirl and warp in the mix. There’s a gospel echo in those chopped choir vocals, which gives the track a haunted, soul-cleansing atmosphere. As the beat stutters and morphs, Earl peels back layers of defense. This might be Earl at his most cathartic and honest. He himself has said “Crisco” contains “the most human verse I’ve written.” One line stands out in particular: “I got the failure beaten out of me. It wasn’t even an option.” In that bar, Earl captures a whole history of pain and hard lessons—the sense that he’s been through trials so intense that quitting was never on the table, because survival demanded perseverance.

Like his past works, Live Laugh Love bridges Earl’s lo-fi, sample-driven roots with new approaches that feel surprisingly accessible (at least by his standards). Fans who fell in love with the muddied beats of Some Rap Songs or the claustrophobic loops of I Don’t Like Shit... will still find plenty of abstract sounds and dusty textures here. The album is filled with “off-kilter, sample-driven beats” and Earl’s trademark deadpan delivery, much like his 2018 opus. Longtime collaborator Theravada handles a bulk of the production, crafting eerie, chopped soul snippets on cuts like “GSW vs Sac” and “Forge.” On “Forge,” for example, Earl raps over a quirky harpsichord motif that sounds lifted from some forgotten film soundtrack; it digs into your brain even as it destabilizes the listener. Navy Blue and Black Noi$e contribute lush yet unconventional soundscapes (“Well Done!”, “Live,” “Static”), ensuring that each track flows into the next with head-spinning continuity. In fact, the whole record is measured and interlocks with the next in a way that’s both singular and eclectic. Tracks often short-circuit or crash into each other without warning, creating a disorienting dream logic. From the abrupt halt of the opener (which collapses at the 2-minute mark) to the mid-song glitch that scrambles the sunny synths on “Live,” Earl isn’t interested in smooth edges. The album’s pacing intentionally jostles the listener, demanding active engagement as tempos and moods shift unpredictably.

The bright side is Earl’s voice is higher in the mix and clearer than it’s been in years. His cadence remains off-kilter; Earl raps like a man following his own internal drum pattern, often sliding just behind or ahead of the beat. This loose, conversational flow gives songs a freestyle vibe, even though you know every line is painstakingly crafted. It’s the same approach that once made others call his flow loosened and inscrutable, but here it serves the album’s themes of comfort and confidence. Earl sounds at home in these irregular measures. And the production, while abstract, isn’t alienating – there are actual hooks of a sort. Repeating samples act as refrains: the soulful vocal loop on “Exhaust” or the eerie chant on “Static” lodge themselves in your head. Speaking of “Exhaust,” the closing track features a special collaborator: R&B legend Erykah Badu, who adds ethereal vocals to send the album off on a smoky, spiritual note. Even without formal guest verses (the album is officially featureless), these contributions and sample choices widen the sonic palette. From jazz and gospel inflections to the raw boom-bap undercurrent, Live Laugh Love’s soundscape is rich and rewarding. It’s a record that feels meticulously designed despite its deceptively scrappy veneer—every weird beat switch or sample hiccup is in service of the album’s atmosphere.

Earl Sweatshirt is still wrestling with his past and striving for excellence, but now he does so with the perspective of a man in his thirties—a man who, notably, has become a father. This life change permeates the album’s tone. Earl allows himself moments of hard-won optimism; for instance, on “Gamma (Need the <3)” he pointedly flips the vibe from shadow to light: “Everybody love the sunshine/Shine like the boy Roy Ayers say/Can’t throw away my whole life standing in shade.” By invoking Roy Ayers’ classic ode to brightness (“Everybody Loves the Sunshine”), Earl signals a rejection of the cynical “standing in shade” mentality. It’s as if he’s reminding himself not to waste life brooding in darkness, a revelation clearly linked to having a child and wanting to step into the sun. In the same song, he references the late Dave “Trugoy” Jolicoeur of De La Soul, a hero of his. Trugoy’s passing in 2023 deeply affected Earl, and he frames the album in that context—as a reminder to be “self-aware and comfortable” in his identity while still pushing himself to be “creative, funny, and to strive for greatness,” just as pioneers like De La Soul did.

That brings us to Earl’s almost monastic work ethic and philosophy of craft. He describes music as the thing he’s most “leave it cleaner than you found it about”—a telling phrase that reveals how seriously he takes his role. Now a veteran artist, he’s wary of complacency and “the comfort” that success can breed. Throughout Live Laugh Love, you can sense this drive for continual improvement. Even when his flow sounds off-the-cuff, we learn that behind the scenes Earl was “putting in military hours” at the studio—up at dawn, writing, producing, rapping till exhaustion—to ensure his art stays sharp. There’s a potent self-awareness in many of his bars, acknowledging old wounds and former mistakes, yet refusing to be defined by them. He balances “woo-woo” spiritual musings with the grounded fact that he still has to “change diapers.”

Live Laugh Love presents Earl Sweatshirt as an artist coming into a hard-earned equilibrium. He hasn’t magically solved all his issues; he’s still processing trauma, still wary of industry games, still prone to cryptic lyrical detours, but he’s found a measure of peace in the process. The album’s spiritual symbolism (Ifá, tarot, biblical/gospel echoes) underscores a journey toward clarity and enlightenment, however imperfect. Meanwhile, the everyday references (like scrambling for food on tour or quips about NBA teams in “GSW vs Sac”) keep him human and accessible. This duality—surrealist allegory meets down-to-earth routine—is where Live Laugh Love truly shines, painting a portrait of an artist who can meditate on cosmic questions one minute and crack a joke about snacks the next. It’s the work of an artist now in his early 30s, who has spent nearly half his life making music in the public eye.

You can feel that history in the album’s weary wisdom and in its refusal to cater to anyone’s expectations but Earl’s own. He’s still the introspective, experimental rapper who once shunned the spotlight, but now he raps with a new purpose: to embrace growth and share hard-won joy. The album’s 25-minute run may be brief, but it’s dense with meaning—a surreal, soulful meditation on chaos and clarity. If you give yourself over to its weird internal logic, it’s enrapturing. Earl set out to make something honest and challenging, and by all accounts, he succeeded. It’s an album that finds strength in contrasts: joy and pain, order and disorder, the sacred and the profane. It’s a heady, heartfelt journey that proves Earl’s art is only getting cleaner, sharper, and more resonant with time.

Great (★★★★☆)

Favorite Track(s): “Gamma (Need the <3),” “Crisco,” “Tourmaline”