Review Summary: Rhyming for the sake of riddling
On the classic Hip-Hop song “Don’t Believe the Hype” by Public Enemy, legendary emcee Chuck D once said a well known line that perfectly describes this album: “I don’t rhyme for the sake of riddling.” Sputnikmusic.com’s legendary Earl Sweatshirt, on the other hand, does the opposite. In an attempt to make his music immediately accessible, Earl’s music becomes so preoccupied with delivery that the point of the raps becomes secondary if not entirely irrelevant. At its lowest point
Doris is Earl Sweatshirt picking an adjective like “hard” and thinking of all the meaningless similes he can, like: “Harder than immigrants working” “Harder than Vince Carter’s knee cartilage is” then filling the rest of the song with childish lyrics like weed references that cause more drowsiness than weed itself. While Odd Future Wolf Gang initially gained attention with intriguing low-tech production by Tyler the Creator, the lackadaisical beats on
Doris only serve to make the lethargic effect of the lyrics more severe. The last track “Knight” did a good job with this, but the rest of the tracks just seemed like a cop out for lazy production.
This album does have a couple of good tracks well worth listening to such as “Sunday” and Knight”, but on almost every other track the lyrics are so verbose that the few decent lines are forgotten as the listener struggles for air during a steaming storm of sh1t. Although Earl matured enough since his last album to grow a nasty Mexi-stash for the cover art and to cut the imaginary rape stories from his lyrics, his new problem is he has nothing to rap about except his otherwise ordinary life that makes Mac Miller’s look interesting in comparison. Yet the guest stars are somehow even worse at having pointless sh1t to rap about. Tyler the Creator brilliantly proclaims “Soared to taco bell got some gorditas MM THAT’S GOOD”. Then on the song “Woah” Tyler decides to record an episode of his turrets, meagerly screaming f*ck seven times in less than thirteen seconds. RZA of the WU-Tang Clan, the most notable guest by far, just comes in to say “I f*ck the freckles off your face bitch” then leaves. Which begs the question if RZA’s cousin GZA was talking to Earl about
Doris when he said: “Too many songs got weak rhymes that’s mad long. Make it brief Son, half short and twice strong.”
