Earl Sweatshirt, one of the youngest, lewdest, crudest rappers in the game, is free.

Earl’s story is one of the more interesting ones in recent memory. At the ripe age of 15, he caught on with the LA rap collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (abbr. OFWGKTA). Odd Future is undeniably the most left-field gang of characters out there: their lyrics are violent, homicidal, suicidal, misogynistic, homophobic and downright unrelenting. In a nutshell, everything that TBAW and the rest of society is so vehemently opposed to. Anyways, Earl began producing mixtapes with Odd Future and quickly identified himself as one of its most prominent members. In my opinion, Earl has the most raw talent and flow out of anyone in the group (sorry, Hodgy). He released his debut studio album, Earl, on March 31, 2010. He was well on his way to rap superstardom, then something delightfully ironic happened: Earl’s momma got in the way.

Remember, young Earl was barely 16 by time he dropped Earl. Meaning, he couldn’t legally be his own guardian. Earl basically disappeared off the face of the earth ever since. Rumour has it that his mother disallowed him from releasing anymore of his music and sent him to school in Samoa (which, judging by the nature of his lyrics, nobody could blame her for). Rap fans worldwide were left salivating for two years.

Earl turned 18 on February 24, 2011, and is now free.

He recently dropped his latest single, Home. For obvious reasons, I can’t post the link directly on this site. A quick YouTube search should do you good, though. It’s not his best work to date, but at least it’s a sign of life. If you really want to get to know Earl, listen to Cool, Drop, Molliwopped and A**milk. He absolutely kills it in the first verse of Odd Future’s marquee track Orange Juice.

Feel free to hold your own opinions about Earl and his music, but accept one fact: Earl is free.