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As leg­end has it, 16 year old Earl Sweatshirt’s hip-hop career was a secret to every­one but his OFWGKTA cohorts and fans. Then, his par­ents found out about his music. So dis­turbed were they, upon lis­ten­ing to his raps, that they sent young Earl to mil­i­tary school. As a result, his crew is left shout­ing, “Free Earl,” and his fans are left wait­ing for his 18th birth­day, hop­ing that mil­i­tary school won’t dis­suade him from mak­ing more music.

This nar­ra­tive is cen­tral to the OFWGKTA myth because it high­lights the main themes around this group. They’re young and tal­ented enough to be called prodi­gies. Their con­tent is dark and dirty and trou­ble­some to the point of exert­ing power over the adult mind. I can imag­ine the panic Mr. and Mrs. Sweat­shirt must’ve felt the first time they heard their lit­tle Earl rap­ping about mur­der and rape and can­ni­bal­ism, employ­ing every word a par­ent doesn’t want to hear from a child. I can imag­ine ques­tions they asked each other before mak­ing a deci­sion: “What are we sup­posed to do?”

For those adults among us who don’t turn OFWGKTA off right away, lured in by the qual­ity of the music and deliv­ery, the ques­tion might be famil­iar: what are we sup­posed to do with this? It’s a good ques­tion. Many will rely on com­par­isons to Eminem and other rap­pers with vio­lent con­tent. Eminem is an influ­ence on most of OFWGKTA, and def­i­nitely Earl who raps at one point about killing a woman who tried to switch Eminem’s Relapse with Jay-Z’s Blue­print in the car CD player. Still, I’d imag­ine that even those who’ve made peace with Eminem’s con­tent might feel some panic about Earl’s.

For me, Eminem is not a sat­is­fy­ing com­par­i­son. Even with an obvi­ous wit and a propen­sity for self-deprecation (the first track is called “this­nig­gaugly,” and it fea­tures Tyler, the Cre­ator intro­duc­ing a silent, awk­ward Earl), Earl never takes the goof­ball pos­ture that allowed us to warm up to Eminem as Slim Shady. Nor does he ever go for the other extreme that helps us empathize with Eminem, whose very deliv­ery could often indi­cate that feel­ing of frus­trated rage with which we could at least attempt to relate. No, Earl’s deliv­ery is always cool and smooth. Eminem’s blood boils, and we hear it; Earl’s blood seems to be ice cold.

What Earl reminds me of is noth­ing in hip-hop or music, but con­tem­po­rary lit­er­a­ture. The clos­est thing I’ve expe­ri­enced to lis­ten­ing to Earl is read­ing Bret Eas­ton Ellis’s Amer­i­can Psy­cho. The char­ac­ter Earl cre­ates for him­self on the album is more like Patrick Bate­man than Slim Shady. Except for read­ing Amer­i­can Psy­cho, I’ve never been as dis­turbed and dis­gusted by fic­tion as I have by Earl. The two pieces also intrigue and mes­mer­ize me. Both are so com­pelling that I’m will­ing to risk night­mares. Patrick Bate­man and Earl Sweat­shirt (the char­ac­ter) are detestable and pitiable. Earl is not relat­able, even in the style of Eminem, because of such vivid accounts of inhu­man behav­ior. It’s even more fas­ci­nat­ing than Eminem’s music, though, because — as with Patrick Bate­man — the few pen­e­trat­ing dis­plays of sad, hurt, bro­ken, vul­ner­a­ble human­ity are even more disarming.