Earl Sweatshirt: Nowhere, Nobody

Not the typical demonic fever dream we tend to get visually from Mr. Sweatshirt, the short film, “Nowhere, Nobody,” features snippets of songs from Earl’s latest project, Some Rap Songs. There’s a softness and a realness to this surreality created by directors and writers Naima Ramos-Chapman and Terence Nance as they transport us back and forth between familiar settings and distant worlds.

The one audio clip not from the album references Bra Willie, esteemed poet and Earl’s father, who passed away in January of 2018. This sound bite plays as we get our first look at the anonymous bust that seems to be Earl in female form. Carefully timed and styled with Beats headphones, the next shot reveals Earl in a white space with the bust and a square crop to the footage. Each shot in this setting feels more like a performance art piece rather than a visual accompanying a rap album,  as they are the only scenes with the square crop and studio background. The shots feel contained and the action on-display.

To juxtapose these shots and bring the viewer into the action , Naima and Terence shoot each home scene in widescreen and a natural setting, allowing us to soak in all the details of the vivid and intense symbolic imagery. There’s a focus on women and feminine home-making actions of child rearing and bathing, most likely referencing the influence women had on Earl’s life with his father’s absence. Visually cryptic, yet calming, these scenes are set with statue faces, the bust, and a yonic sculpture. Other than receiving a bath, Earl’s actions inside the home only seem to cause distress and act as an antagonist to the women’s actions. These scenes are followed with the line, “there’s not a black woman I can’t thank,” the only video effects in the short film, and then a repetition of that line.

It’s so easy to get lost in decoding these scenes and forget that Earl’s character is ultimately an enthusiastic and involved youth basketball coach who just took home the trophy. What Coach Hoodie encounters after coming home plays like a prism of his own internal reflections of home life and the way women played an important role in his upbringing with a father so far away. This introspective collage manifests in painted babies, blood dripping from the ceilings, and a shattered picture frame.

The only full-screen shot we get pans out from a widescreen angle of the open casket filled with white statue hands and draped in a South African flag. The statue hand symbology throughout the film is given greater context and seems to stand for the presence of his father’s spirit, evidently more palpable now than during Earl’s childhood. This shot could also represent the death of his feeling disconnected from his father.

The short film leaves you in a self-reflective state, processing every detail you just saw, rather than simply nodding along and questioning if Earl needs to see a psychiatrist per typical Sweatshirt fashion. Earl has never been afraid to show us the darkest parts of his soul, but this film gives us his gray, his vulnerable, and presents a beautiful reflection on pain, growth, and loss.