How Earl Sweatshirt Taught Me To “Live, Laugh, Love”

Earl Sweatshirt 3L World Tour
Guest artists: Liv.e, ZelooperZ, Cletus Strap, Niontay, AKAI SOLO
Toad’s Place
New Haven
Dec. 4

For a fan of living, laughing, and loving, I bristle at the phrase “Live, Laugh, Love.”

Call me a hater, say I’m no fun, but to me the philosophy has always just felt obvious to the point of sinister. Has anyone who’s been reminded to “Live, Laugh, Love” really never thought doing that before? (So what is the saying actually telling them to do—bottle hard feelings, ignore suffering?)

There is a self-destruct button to my cynicism, though, and it lives on the DJ decks. Standing in the crowd as Earl Sweatshirt and his lineup of guest artists took the Toad’s Place stage Thursday on a world tour celebrating Earl’s latest album Live Laugh Love, I didn’t stand a chance.

Melting into the smoky universe of Toad’s Place, admiring the fractal geometry of friends in hoodies and beanies chilling on stage surrounded by strangers in hoodies and beanies chilling in the audience, I began to open myself up to some of the oldest advice in the book.

Live

AKAI SOLO‘s set came with a backdrop of scenes from Japanese pirate cartoon One Piece. It transported me back to house parties I used to wind up at, where art guys would put on dance music and play anime from tilted projectors.

Smooth electronic flute-like synth blessed the beat. AKAI SOLO’s raps came through with undiluted energy, driving every point home.

Ten people floated around the stage, smoking and hanging out in their cold-weather layers: a mix of singers, DJs, and people without an apparent role for the night other than vibing out, which they were excellent at. They mouthed each other’s lyrics and gave each other heavy nods. Stage lights roamed the venue, illuminating the fog.

There was an immediate comfort to the atmosphere on stage. I thought of Breakfast with Ringgo, the super laidback 2010s-era Boiler Room show self-described as a “smoke-fused portal into LA sunshine and the very best beats.” DJs would lounge around, crouch down, and play music in a small room while friends wandered in and out, never needing to justify their presence. Sometimes there was breakfast. Always, there was Ringgo—also known as LA producer Mndsgn, holding a nonzero overlap with Earl Sweatshirt’s LA underground rap fanbase.

Having soaked up the good vibes emanating from the stage, I felt myself crack a wide smile. After a cold December night’s walk to the show, it really was like cracking through something frozen. I thought of the Grinch’s heart, breaking past the edges of his body as it grew three sizes. Maybe all the green man needed were some nasty beats.

Laugh

I looked closer at all the people on stage, and there he was with his perfect face. Earl Sweatshirt, breaking his ultra calm demeanor with occasional smiles so big they seemed impossible to re-contain. Was I a superfan? I had entered the room as a casual listener, but I could feel the sands shift before my very eyes, laying out a future replaying Live Laugh Love back to back. Reporting from the slight future, that prediction has borne out; I wasn’t as immune to starpower as I thought.

Cletus Strap came to the front in a Niontay shirt, singing about drinking water over a track of relentless, tight drums and a bass I could feel in my chest. Then Niontay himself took over, singing “I love it, I love you” while behind him, an animated version of him stood on various thrilling items, including a crocodile and a meteor hurtling toward Earth’s surface. “On the ones and twos” was DJ MadMax, mixing dancey beats with freaky, virtuosic synth.

Then it was honesty hour at the Sweatshirt Stage. “We going to Canada tomorrow,” Niontay said. “And we got hella weed we gotta smoke before we get to Canada.” So if the performers seemed extra floaty for this show…well, that was the reason.

Love

ZelooperZ made an important announcement to the crowd. “I got a cool shirt on,” he said, unzipping his double layer of jackets to reveal a pink Ozzy Osbourne shirt.

DJ MadMax turned to a triumphant instrumental as ZelooperZ rapped, “Can’t shed no tears/ Take a walk in my shoes as a Bebe kid.” Then the singer got the crowd to disavow cigarettes with him in his catchy song “Fuck Cigarettes,” a call almost certainly declared ironically. What was important, really, was the cadence of the words—rhythmic gold.

Performers egged on the crowd for a dance-off amongst each other, which worked well the first few rounds. When some of the men got too rowdy, Earl’s friends reprimanded them for “being abrasive,” calling out, “Ladies only now. Too much boy time!”

Too much boy time, indeed. It was about time for Liv.e to get on stage.

She kept a blanket scarf wrapped around her head for the set, layering her vocals, complaining about “so many boys in here,” and asking the ladies in the room to raise their hands.

At one point, she sang over a sample from late R&B legend D’Angelo’s “Brown Sugar,” capturing hearts in the crowd. She was undoubtedly the coolest of the bunch. On the screen behind her, a set of jittery eyeballs looked around the inside of a Matrix-esque wormhole of digital green numbers.

DJ MadMax switched out with Detroit DJ Black Noi$e, who immediately hit the crowd with the iconic twangy guitar intro to Earl Sweatshirt’s “Riot.” My vision of the scene suddenly turned zoetropic as the crowd jostled around, making Earl visible only in narrow, intermittent gaps. I didn’t mind the effect.

In a simple sweater and stylish, structured hat, Earl embodied nonchalance as he rapped about the space-time continuum and surrendering to life’s complexities. He took the crowd back to a more explicit era for 2013’s “Molasses,” and when fans scream-sang along he seemed surprised, a mix of looking impressed they went this hard for the deep cut and an acknowledgment of the distance between last decade’s Earl and this one.

“I feel it in my—/ I feel it in my—/ I feel it in my soul,” Earl sang as Black Noi$e provided a beautiful synth organ backing. Earl joked with the crowd, saying “You gotta measure your vocals in one hand, and cover your ear with the other.” He acted it out so we could see; he looked good.

“That’s how they know you’re really singing.”

By the end of the night, I felt embarrassed I ever spent energy trying to fight the tide of “Live, Laugh, Love.” They got me. And while I was destined to wake up a skeptic once again, I can’t say I wasn’t changed. Here’s to living, laughing, loving through the rest of 2025.