Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs

I was just talking to a friend yesterday about the current state of hip-hop. It started as a trend, the rapping vocals at least -just another fad people probably joked about disappearing as soon as it came to be. Well it didn't and now we are living in a world where it is the most listened genre. Hip-hop and pop music are going hand and hand even more these days. No longer is it rock, indie, or R and B dominating the popular hits on the radio.  This is such a recent development, that I have to wonder if cultures have fully caught up - what do we expect hip-hop to be versus what it actually is? What I really like about Earl Sweatshirt's Some Rap Songs is how it directly challenges what I expected out of a modern rap album. A lot of people I talked to about this album didn't care for it - they said the songs were too short and unfocused. There's no denying the songs this time around are on average two minutes, and they are some wild tracks - like they are comprised sound collages or plunder-phonics that Earl found in a flooded basement. These aren't bad things. This album is punk to me, short songs, no BS; even Earl's "persona" and his music's vibes seem to challenge hip-hop and his past ventures with Odd Future. This isn't a new Earl, but a re-imagined Earl.  And this is an album that knows exactly how weird and divergent it is. With so many rappers contending for the limelight, I have to wonder what actually works and doesn't work in the rap game.  I'm curious if Earl thinks about these things too. The title of the album leads me to believe he wants us to think he's not trying; but I think he's just trying to work smarter, not harder.