Earl Sweatshirt

Thebe Neruda Kgositsile (born February 24, 1994), also known by his stage name Earl Sweatshirt, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer.

Thebe Neruda Kgositsile was born on February 24, 1994, in Chicago, Illinois, to Cheryl Harris, a law professor and critical race theorist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Keorapetse Kgositsile, a South African poet and political activist.

Harris and Kgositsile separated when Thebe was six years old.

His father is often mentioned in Kgositsile's music and was called a "complicated figure" by Pitchfork.

He was presented as a person that was often absent in Kgositsile's life, due to him living in South Africa while Kgositsile lived in Los Angeles, California.

Kgositsile stated that "Me and my dad had a relationship that's not uncommon for people to have with their fathers, which is a non-perfect one, talking to him is symbolic and non-symbolic, but it's literally closure for my childhood. Not getting to have that moment left me to figure out a lot with my damn self."

Kgositsile attended the UCLA Lab School in Los Angeles and New Roads Middle School & High School in Santa Monica, California.

Kgositsile first started rapping in the seventh grade.

In 2007, under the name Sly Tendencies, he posted tracks from his mixtape, Kitchen Cutlery, via MySpace.

He and two of his friends, Loofy and JW Mijo, formed a rap trio called The Backpackerz.

Kgositsile was originally known by the moniker Sly Tendencies when he began rapping in 2008, but changed his name when Tyler, the Creator invited him to join his alternative hip hop collective Odd Future in late 2009.

They intended to release a mixtape titled World Playground, but disbanded sometime in 2009.

In 2009, fellow rapper, Tyler, the Creator, discovered Kgositsile via his MySpace account after he reached out to Tyler to tell him he was a fan of his work.

Kgositsile later changed his pseudonym to Earl Sweatshirt and joined Tyler's rap group, Odd Future.

He gained recognition and critical praise for his debut mixtape, Earl, which he released in March 2010, at the age of 16.

Shortly after its release, his mother sent him to a boarding school in Samoa for at-risk teens for a year and a half.

His debut mixtape, Earl, was self-released on March 31, 2010, for free digital download on the Odd Future website.

Most of the mixtape was produced by Tyler, the Creator.

Earl was named the 24th-best album of 2010 by Complex.

Despite positive reactions from both critics and fans, various sources indicated that Kgositsile had stopped making music with Odd Future.

Posts from Tyler, the Creator's Twitter and Formspring accounts seemed to indicate that Kgositsile's mother would not grant permission to release any of her son's music.

Kgositsile later expressed in an interview that his mother sent him to Samoa due to getting into trouble with friends.

Kgositsile attended Coral Reef Academy, a therapeutic retreat school for at-risk boys, located outside of the Samoan capital of Apia.

At Coral Reef Academy, he worked to earn back privileges and the opportunity to return home.

At the beginning of his enrollment, he was unable to use the bathroom unsupervised.

While there, he read Manning Marable's biography on Malcolm X and Richard Fariña's counterculture fiction.

He wrote rhymes, including most of his verse on "Oldie", his only contribution to Odd Future's studio album The OF Tape Vol. 2.

Kgositsile was brought back from Samoa by Leila Steinberg, the first manager of Tupac Shakur, who still manages Earl's career today.

His hiatus led to a movement known as "Free Earl", which stemmed from a post on Odd Future's Tumblr.

Chants of the phrase would ensue at the group's shows, and would appear throughout several songs by both the collective and its individual members – leading to media coverage of the movement itself.

He was unable to record music during his stay there, but returned to Los Angeles in February 2012, just before his eighteenth birthday.

On February 8, 2012, rumors spread around the internet that Kgositsile had returned to the U.S. when a video of him surfaced on YouTube with a preview of a new song saying if viewers wanted "the full thing", they would have to give him 50,000 followers on Twitter.

Kgositsile rejoined Odd Future and started producing new music, releasing his debut studio album, Doris, in August 2013.

His second album, I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside, followed in March 2015, and his third, Some Rap Songs, released in November 2018.

His projects have all received widespread critical praise.

He is currently signed to his independent label Tan Cressida, which was formerly distributed by Columbia Records.

On November 1, 2019, Kgositsile released an EP titled Feet of Clay.

Earl released the deluxe version of Feet of Clay a few months after and then took a year off from music to start working on his next album.

In late 2021, Earl released the single "2010" and then released two more singles before releasing his fourth studio album, Sick!.

In 2023, he released his fifth album, Voir Dire, a collaboration with producer The Alchemist.