Earl Sweatshirt’s Uncanny Moshpit:
Hip-Hop’s Modern Link to Conceptualist Art
by Khari I.S. Dawson
On August 26, 2023, a YouTube user, Thomasercooll, with their profile picture set to a photo of the rapper Tyler the Creator edited to appear morbidly obese as his Igor persona–Thomasercooll–uploaded a video to the platform. The video is titled “People moshing to ‘east’ by Earl Sweatshirt” and though the set of words sounds generated by a computer, when you’ve submerged yourself totally within the context of the upload, by no means is the title misleading. It is a compilation of live shows performed by the pivotal California avant-gardist Earl Sweatshirt, whose art tends to appear in the form of beat-making and rapping. He released his first studio record, Doris, in 2013, when he was nineteen years old. Doris’ critical reception was overwhelmingly positive, with critics anticipating his solo release amidst his involvement in counter-culturist rap and arts collective Odd Future.
With the record, Sweatshirt amalgamated his hip-hop influences with intention–rappers MF Doom and RZA, Virginian rap group Clipse, and others. Fans resonate with him largely because of what he represents for outcasted Californian young people–and oddball teens internationally as well. In a review for Doris, Ben Beaumant-Thomas for The Guardian writes, “This is knockabout punchline rap made into high art, a psychedelic visionquest to the taqueria on a skateboard.”
He went on to release two subsequent projects, 2015’s I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside, and 2018’s Some Rap Songs–which presented an alternate version of Sweatshirt–one who was less wedded to classical hip-hop aesthetics. Speaking about the track “Eclipse” on the record, Sweatshirt says to NPR interviewers Ari Shapiro and Connor Donevan, “...there is nothing that tells a large group of people–like–what to do with their neck on that song. It's very... It's just advanced me…It's like a language that's not trying to talk to necessarily everybody.”
A Turning Point
The album was a turning point for Sweatshirt, his goal as a musician changed. No longer was he foregrounding the positive auditory experience of his listeners; he was foregrounding the conveyal of his pain. A year following the release of Some Rap Songs, Sweatshirt came out with FEET OF CLAY. The album brilliantly built on the aesthetic subversions of Some Rap Songs, and it featured several of Sweatshirt’s peers in the realm of avant-garde hip-hop, a genre term used loosely by rap fans, especially around the time of Some Rap Songs release. The second track on the album is “EAST”.
In all of the videos compiled by Thomasercooll in his 2023 upload, Sweatshirt performs “EAST” in an auditorium packed with loyal fans. These are rap concerts, so to some extent it makes sense that Sweatshirt’s fans are moshing (to mosh is to, “dance to rock music in a violent manner involving jumping up and down and deliberately colliding with other dancers” according to Oxford Language’s online dictionary–though now, with the melding of punk and hip-hop aesthetics in recent years, rap concerts customarily involve moshing as well) to one of his songs. Rap music as it has existed in the past and largely exists now gives us a lot to mosh to: 808 drums that fuse the idea of melody with rhythm, complex timbral singers and rappers who do the same, samples from a wide variety of influences across genre and generation–it is almost impossible not to have a bodily reaction. Despite all this being said, watching people mosh to “EAST”–for me–is both a deeply unsettling and comically absurd experience. The reason this is–and the reason that I believe Thomasercooll thought the phenomena of moshing to “EAST” was out of the ordinary enough to create and share a compilation of it–is that “EAST” is not a good song. Well, good based on the aesthetic standards that we’ve given to hip-hop during the span of its more than half a century long existence.
Richard L. Schur, in his work, “Defining Hip-Hop Aesthetics” extensively analyzes the widely accepted aesthetic attributes of hip-hop. His entire definition of hip-hop is significant in arguing the unconventionality of “EAST”, but it is important now to look at how he defines the function of sampling in hip-hop. Schur argues, “Sampling or collage, unlike the blues, is not primarily concerned with bending notes, wringing experiential angst out of a familiar song, or writing over tradition, but locating a ‘cohesive organizing principle’ that fuses together the familiar elements in an aesthetically pleasing way” (Schur 6). This quote reveals a lot about what we expect when we delve into a piece of hip-hop. Schur asserts that hip-hop brings together samples in a way that induces familiarity–and within that induction–pleases the part of the listener that is looking for something beautiful within a given song.
Even today, now that hip-hop is a form of expression that is sample-based on one side of the coin, and on the other–heavily reliant on modern technological developments such as computerized drums and digital synthesizers, these assertions are still true of all hip-hop that has received mainstream success–sample-based or not. Based on my observations of classic and modern hip-hop, the aesthetic beauty of a piece often comes in the form of rhythmic drums that are foregrounded, melodic complexity and/or familiarity, and highly rhythmic singing or rapping. These aesthetic principles are abundant in one example that showcases hip-hop in its classical form (hip-hop from the 80s and 90s) while also being considerably modern, being only 20 years old. It is by the canonical, endlessly prolific New York lyricist and beatmaker MF Doom (one of Sweatshirt’s aforementioned influences). The song is called “Hoe Cakes”, and it is from his 2004 project MM…FOOD. The song contains seven samples in total. The two that are foregrounded are Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love” and J.J Fad’s “Supersonic”. “Sweet Love” drives the song melodically, with borrowed bass, keys, and drum fills from its intro–and “Supersonic” drives it rhythmically, with a borrowed beat-boxing loop also from the song’s intro, that corresponds with the quieted drums of “Sweet Love”.
Upon listening to the track, it is clear that the samples were thoughtfully melded to create a pleasurable listening experience. “Sweet Love” and “Supersonic” are both seminal black texts–and when sampled by Doom they immediately invoke a sense of nostalgia for his intended audience–black contemporary lovers of hip-hop who are by proxy appreciators of R&B and early hip-hop. The samples together are cohesive, almost as if they’d never been separate. Those unfamiliar with hip-hop or the practice of sampling might not even notice that different tracks were cut together in order to create it–adding significantly to the aesthetic appeal that Schur mentioned earlier. “Hoe Cakes” is an easy listen–it follows hip-hop’s conventions–this is why Doom is one of the first names discussed when scholars of hip-hop define it. These exact points could be made about some of Sweatshirt’s own music which–though reliant mostly on computerized drums and synths–still incorporates samples, just a different sort. “Hoe Cakes” by MF Doom utilizes a form of sampling scholar Amanda Sewell describes as “aggregate structural” in her work “A Typology of Sampling in Hip-Hop”; this means that several samples are chopped from the beginning to the end of a given bar–and rearranged at will to create an alternate version of the samples’ grooves (Sewell 26).
Sampling as Art
“On God'' by MIKE, featuring Sweatshirt and rapper Tony Shhnow utilizes what Sewell calls an “emphatic surface sample”–one that isn’t part of the groove but contributes to the overall themes of the track or thoughts of the musicians (Sewell 48). The sample used is from a YouTube video in which a man–who would either be considered a conspiracy theorist or hotep (depending on who in black community was asked)–walks into a phone store and says to an employee, “Stop selling them phones that're wired to the federal government. That’s all I'ma tell you.” Like Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love”, this surface sample evokes familiarity in intended listeners (the distinction of intended is significant here), because most black listeners of hip-hop are familiar with the hotep conspiracy theorist archetype–and they most likely have been told something along the lines of the sample’s spoken word. On top of the work that the sample is doing to make the song aesthetically appealing, the programmed drum loop and infectious chorus performed by Sweatshirt makes this song customarily one that would be moshed to at a standard rap concert. This song is an example of the texture of most hip-hop today–a branch of hip-hop frequently referred to as “trap”.
Briefly analyzing “Hoe Cakes” and “On God” will aid one in understanding the “badness” of “EAST”. “EAST”, like “Hoe Cakes”, utilizes structural sampling. The difference is that “EAST” incorporates a single sample–the intro of “Iddunja Chilwah” by Orkes Gambus Al Fata. “Iddunja Chilwah” is not by any means a widely recognizable sample; it is an Indonesian track from 1975, and most black Americans are likely unfamiliar with the sound of Indonesian music. This strips from “EAST” the nostalgic appeal afforded to both “Hoe Cakes” and “On God”. On top of this, “EAST” doesn’t have any drums–neither electronically produced nor sampled. The entire instrumental of the track is the looped beginning of “Iddunja Chilwah”–ironically just missing the first bar of the song in which the drums kick in. This means that the only thing to be heard besides Sweatshirt’s disjointed, arhythmic speech is the shrill repetition of the sample’s horn and string instrumentation. To me, the sample sounds like something directly out of the film The Sound of Music (1965)–aged and synonymous with whiteness–especially given that the portion of the sample used doesn’t incorporate the drums of the track that would’ve given it away immediately as Middle Eastern. Though they do anyway, listeners are provided almost nothing to mosh to in “EAST”. In one of the clips in Thomasercooll’s compilation, Sweatshirt even pleads with his fans, “Stop doing that!” His pleading makes it clear that having people dance or sing along to “EAST” wasn’t his intended purpose with the track.
Conceptualism
So why would Sweatshirt make a song that shouldn’t be danced to or sung to, and doesn’t invoke any sense of familiarity within listeners? I argue that the answer can be found in the history of the world’s most pivotal visual arts movement–conceptualism. The link between Sweatshirt’s “EAST” and conceptual visual art is its tendency to prioritize the plain conveyor of a concept–as opposed to having a nuclear relationship to the idea of being perceived positively by the greater public. The father of conceptualism, French artist Marcel Duchamp’s goal in creating concept-art was to detach the idea of art from the idea of aesthetic beauty. The most popular example of this is his piece “Fountain” (1917) which is a urinal dated and signed by a fictional artist to afford Duchamp anonymity (anonymity that would prove to be central to “Fountain” having its intended effect). In conceptualism, the urinal operates as what Duchamp coined a “readymade”: found objects of everyday life that possess no outward visual brilliance. Conceptualism relies on these readymades–the way a lot of hip-hop relies on pre-recorded tracks for sampling. Joseph Kosuth’s seminal essay, Art after Philosophy explains the need for conceptualism during the time of its inception, writing,
“Aesthetic considerations are indeed always extraneous to an object's function or ‘reason to be’. Unless of course, the object's ‘reason to be’ is strictly aesthetic. An example of a purely aesthetic object is a decorative object, for decorations primary function is to “add something too, as to make more attractive; adorn; ornament, “and this relates directly to taste. And this leads us directly to formalist art and criticism. Formalist art (painting and sculpture) is the Vanguard of decoration, and strictly speaking, one could reasonably assert that its art condition is so minimal that for all functional purposes, it is not art at all, but pure exercises in aesthetics.” (17).
Before conceptualism, visual art was starting to have the primary function of being “beautiful” as opposed to conveying concepts and specific emotional experiences. The goal of Duchamp and those who followed him was to remove the idea of beauty totally from art. With the omission of art’s responsibility of being beautiful, it now only had the responsibility of meaning something; in other words: the sole job of a conceptualist piece was to convey a concept. “Fountain” and other works like it didn’t ask to be analyzed because it was aesthetically beautiful, it asked to be analyzed because it was in front of the viewer, and the artist decided that it was art.
Achieving a conceptualist music seems to be the clear goal of Sweatshirt when it comes to “EAST”. Duchamp, in conversation with Martin Friedman describes the act of selecting a readymade for a conceptual sculpture as, “the result of being very careful of not using my sense of beauty or my belief in some aesthetic of some kind–in other words: finding an object of complete indifference as far as aesthetics are concerned.” This decision making process aligns with what can be heard in “EAST”; the sample of “Iddunja Chilwah” completely abandons Schur’s definition of hip-hop aesthetics, having no drums, cultural significance (to black Americans), or melodic resolution. Removing the possibility of being perceived as danceable, singable, or nostalgic allows “EAST” to be thought of in a different light. Instead of operating as a sonic decorative sculpture, “EAST” operates as a sonic “Fountain”. The track is almost anxiety-inducing in its refusal of hip-hop beauty–but from this anxiety–listeners are able to be more introspective than they would be listening to a song that they could dance to.
When I listen to “EAST”, I am unable to dance or rap along, but I am inclined to consider the implications of a sample like “Iddunja Chilwah”. I mentioned earlier that the intro sounds like something out of The Sound of Music. Sampling the beginning of what sounds like a European folk song asks listeners to question what has become of hip-hop. Hip-hop–though always enjoyed by music lovers of all races and ethnicities–used to have a primary fanbase of
black people–given that the musicians creating the work within the genre were black, used samples by musicians of color, and rapped lyrics that were fundamentally specific to the Black-American experience. This has changed dramatically since hip-hop’s inception. As is clear in Thomasercooll’s compilation, most attendees at rap concerts today are indicative of modern rap fanbases: teenage to young adult upper-middle class white men. The irony of this–to me–is mind-boggling given that most hip-hop today still specifically centers black life.
Though the instrumental of “EAST” sounds like a chantey, Sweatshirt raps as though he were on a traditional beat (with lyrics like: “Double back when you got it made/30 racks of weed,/no fat in the collard greens/Off top was me, no cap, I don't bottle things/Flashin' grandmama rings on her fingers/And fondle the thing/Hollow with glee”)–almost like he is fighting against a current of European melodic influence. The tonal disconnect between the sample and Sweatshirt’s lyricism and delivery is what creates the “concept” of the track: hip-hop has always been for black people, but is now primarily being consumed and co-opted by white listeners. These white listeners are the descendants of a conglomeration of individuals who have hoisted black people from white spaces for centuries, creating the initial need for hip-hop to exist in the first place. Hip-hop was born from black people having no access to spaces that celebrated them due to their art always being deemed primitive, invaluable, and unrequiring of skill. “EAST” seeks to point a finger at this paradox–how did hip-hop become for white people? When did black art become “high art” (as Beaumant-Thomas describes Doris earlier) according to white people, and do black people even want to be a part of that?
The concept of “EAST” becomes really meta when it is thought of in the context of the moshing compilation. Of course, the moshing isn’t very conducive to a group of people who are analyzing a work. Instead of trying to extract concepts from the song, audience members attempted to find immediate aesthetic attraction (what they could dance or sing along to). This search for–and artificially finding–beauty is what I argue makes “EAST” such a profound and successful piece of performance art. You come to see Sweatshirt performing in front of a white crowd as a black man attempting to meld hip-hop aesthetics with European sensibilities–in a world where black people are only worth listening to when they are entertaining or attempting to appease white people–in front of an audience of young white men infatuated with blackness, though unacquainted with it–insistent they know what to do with a piece of hip-hop. A perfect world for conceptual hip-hop is one that is met with initial stillness. To quote “EAST”, in this perfect world the, “Cognitive dissonance [is] shattered and the necessary venom [is] restored”.
Works Cited
Baker, Anita. “Sweet Love.” Rapture, Warner Bros., 1986.
Beaumont-Thomas, Ben. “Earl Sweatshirt: Doris – Review.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 22 Aug. 2013.
Duchamp, Marcel. “Fountain.” 1917.
Duchamp, Marcel. “Marcel Duchamp Talks with Martin Friedman about the Readymade.” Walk Art Center, YouTube, 16 Feb. 2012.
Dumile, Daniel. “Hoe Cakes.” MM..FOOD, Spotify, Rhymesayers Entertainment, 2004. J.J. Fad. “Supersonic.” Supersonic The Album. Spotify, East West America, 1988.
Kgositsile, Thebe. “EAST.” FEET OF CLAY, Spotify, Warner Bros., 2019.
Kosuth, Joseph. “Art After Philosophy.” Art After Philosophy and After, The MIT Press, 1991, p. 17.
“Mosh.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press.
Orkes Gambus Al Fata. “Iddunja Chilwah.” Ja Asmar. Youtube. 1975.
Saul Badman, “Stop selling them phones that're wired to the federal government.” Youtube. 18 Feb. 2021.
Schur, Richard L. “Defining Hip-Hop Aesthetics.” Parodies of Ownership: Hip-Hop Aesthetics and Intellectual Property Law, University of Michigan Press, 2009, pp. 42–67.
Sewell, Amanda. “Typology of Sampling in Hip-Hop.” Indiana University, 2013.
Shapiro, Ari, and Connor Donevan. “Earl Sweatshirt on Resentment, Growth and Giving Yourself a Chance.” NPR, NPR, 7 Dec. 2018.
Thomasercooll. “People Moshing to ‘East’ by Earl Sweatshirt," YouTube, 26 Aug. 2023.
Khari Dawson is a multi-genre writer and musician based in Maryland. Published in multiple publications, including the 2025 Jan/Feb issue of POETRY magazine, she has enjoyed support for her work through grants and fellowship opportunities with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' Art Under a Minute program, the Martha's Vineyard Creative Writing Institute, and the Smithsonian exhibit project, "Gen Z Speaks: A Right to the City." She holds a BA in English and a minor in Film Studies from the University of San Francisco and is a 2024 Watering Hole Poetry fellow.