Earl Sweatshirt Delivers Introspective Performance of ‘2010’ on ‘Fallon’

Earl Sweatshirt brought his unique lyrical stylings to The Tonight Show Monday with a performance of his song, “2010.”

The cerebral track, which finds the 27-year-old reflecting on the beginnings of his career, was the first single from Earl’s latest album, Sick!, which was released earlier this month.

“Foot shook ground when I stepped on it/ I didn’t look back when I broke soil/ ‘Cause every time I did it would hurt more,” he raps.

“We’re not going to escape certain laws of science, so your ascension has to be controlled,” Earl told Rolling Stone in December when asked about his rise to fame at age 16. “It also makes a good argument for why I think when you see people enter the game around 28 to 30 years old, it feels wholly different than kids.”

Standing in front of a backdrop of medical-themed cartoons reminiscent of mid-century educational videos, the rapper’s  Tonight Show performance evoked the dominant themes of pandemic-induced paranoia and anxiety present throughout Sick!.

“Sick is my humble offering of 10 songs recorded in the wake of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic and its subsequent lockdowns,” Earl said in a press statement about the album. “Before the virus I had been working on an album I named after a book I used to read with my mother (The People Could Fly). Once the lockdowns hit, people couldn’t fly anymore. A wise man said art imitates life. People were sick. The People were angry and isolated and restless. I leaned into the chaos cause it was apparent that it wasn’t going anywhere. These songs are what happened when I would come up for air.”

Sick! marks the rappers first studio release since 2019’s Feet of Clay EP.