Earl Sweatshirt's second major label release has become one of the most talked-about albums of 2015. The follow-up to 2013's Doris, the album includes the single Grief.
Aptly titled with the off-putting I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside: An Album, Earl Sweatshirt's sophomore effort is a crushing confessional that refuses to get off the couch, even if it's beautiful outside. "I ain't been outside for a minute, I've been livin' what I wrote" the Odd Future MC snaps on "Guilt," but then again, why bother as adoring fans can't help Earl with the recent death of a family member and entering your twenties jaded about drugs must be rough ... But the man never comes off as misguidedly privileged or resistant to advice, he just feels like a cog in the machine, grist for the mill ... A grueling album on first encounter, since Earl's old-school-styled, tight rhymes remain as scintillating as they were on his official debut Doris, but that album's overwhelming runtime has been slashed to an economical 30 minutes here. Besides that, the rapper handles most of the production himself, using the moniker "randomblackdude" ... while the guest list (Dash, Wiki, Vince Staples, and Na'kel) is minimal with only one production ("Off Top") handed over to [be produced by] Left Brain. I Don't Like Shit is heavy and lacks much hope, and yet it communicates these feelings with such skill and artful understanding that it still fills the soul. -- David Jeffries [AllMusic]
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