New Earl Sweatshirt – “Chum”
On only his second solo track since returning from Samoa, Earl Sweatshirt takes us back to his formative years over a simple piano loop. Sincere as ever, Earl spits about awkward growing pains, meeting Tyler, going “from honor roll to cracking locks up off those bicycle racks” and his crew “feeling as hard as Vince Carter’s knee cartilage is”. Honestly, I could listen to Earl spit over pretty piano loops like this for hours and not get bored. The backing vocals sure do sound a lot like “Captain Murphy” (or Lord Quas I suppose) and there’s little doubt that Earl has some role in the character. Stream below.
The Astral Plane 
Kehinde Hassan said in an interview with MTV News that “Most of the sessions were about five hours of talking crap — what artists you like and you don’t like, having fun — and then he’ll just black out and be like, ‘OK I got a verse.’ That’s how ‘Chum’ worked.”