Credit: Frank Morales

Earl Sweatshirt experienced a strange upbringing that many people can’t relate to. The Los Angeles rapper grew a fan base in 2010 with the release of his debut mixtape, Earl, before his mother stepped in. She sent him to a boarding school, Coral Reef Academy, in Samoa, after she was concerned about his behaviour and drug use.

During his time away, Odd Future gained a cult following and a “free Earl” movement was created by the collective’s fans. After a year and a half out of the public eye, he returned as a celebrity with immense pressure around the quality of his rapping. Earl wasn’t even 18 but had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

It was because of these things that Earl had a bizarre 20s. His experience away from home made him socially awkward, in addition to losing his virginity at a later age than most. Due to his fame, he spent a lot of time smoking weed and focusing on music in private, which didn’t help his physical and mental health.

“I had a funny 20s,” he told Indie Magazine. “Everything, socially, was super advanced for me on the front end of my 20s—to the point where I couldn’t handle it. Because I spent the end of my childhood in the program, I was a little bit socially undercooked. I’m like, ‘I haven’t started having sex yet – like, what are y’all…? What is right now? I’m… scared.’ So I spent the first four years of my 20s very reserved, very high on weed, very music-minded.”

Earl recalls his first experience with alcohol in the middle of his 20s. Instead of getting the drug out of his system by drinking with friends during his early adulthood, he had a negative relationship with it. It got to a point where he was seriously concerned about his health and feared he would lose his life.

“I learned how to, like, drink a cocktail, and then that turned into the drinking that I would have been doing if I wasn’t being reserved and weird at the beginning of my 20s,” he said. “Then I looked up after four, five years and was like, ‘Wow, I’m going to die.’ And so then I hit 30. I’m like, ‘I don’t want to die.’”

Earl realised he “couldn’t really build” when he was drunk and had to start each day from scratch, which, as a musician with lots of ideas, proved difficult. Luckily, he had the right people around him to make changes to his life.

He credits his wife for intervening with him. “She wasn’t my wife then, but I was inclined to listen to her because that was also my treacherous twin, as well,” he told The New York Times. “She’s a stand-up comedian. We were outside together. I think that’s why we’re inside together now.” These days, he’s in a better place, fresh off the release of his Live Laugh Love album with a second child on the way.