Nowhere, Nobody

***Nowhere, Nobody*** is a short film created by and starring Earl Sweatshirt. It was written and directed by Naima Ramos-Chapman and Terence Nance. The film was released on January 30, 2019, alongside the announcement of Sweatshirt's 2019 tour, Thebe Kgositsile Presents: Fire It Up! A Tour Starring Earl Sweatshirt & Friends, in support of his third studio album *Some Rap Songs*.

## Premise

The short film begins with footage of Sweatshirt coaching a youth basketball team during a game all while Sweatshirt's song "Nowhere2go" plays. His team wins the game and Sweatshirt runs out onto the court with a trophy to celebrate with the team. Sweatshirt is then next seen sitting in a minivan parked on the curb. "Nowhere2go" is turned off and Sweatshirt exits the vehicle, grabs a box and a bag of basketballs from the back and walks passed a bust sculpture of Sweatshirt on a podium. The "it is all so familiar" sample from Sweatshirt's song "Shattered Dreams" echoes abruptly as the camera is still framed on the bust. After that, another voice speaks about Sweatshirt's father Keorapetse Kgositsile while the screen shows images of Sweatshirt, one a black and white photo and another of Sweatshirt staring at the bust sculpture in a white room, while wearing white headphones and a white sweatshirt.

The next shot shows a mother staring at what seems to be a flower sculpture on a wall while the instrumental for Sweatshirt's song "The Bends" plays. She turns around and walks up to a cradle. Smoke erupts from the cradle as Sweatshirt's "Red Water" plays and the mother speaks to and paints a white baby doll with green paint. In another shot, the mother is looking at both the flower sculpture and the Earl Sweatshirt bust that is turned away as more smoke accumulates in the room. A flash of red appears before being brought back to the shot of the toy baby being painted. The mother then picks up a real baby boy but with green eyes as they now appear to be in a white room with just the cradle and bust sculpture. Above them, reads "A C.D.C. report issued in December 2013 found that black fathers were the most involved with their children daily, on a number of measures, of any other group of fathers."

The scene shows the bust sculpture yet again and right next to it a black man with his back turned and the entire back of body is painted white, also while covered in vines. Sweatshirt walks into the frame with a white mannequin hand in each of his hands. He uses the mannequin hands to remove the vines from the man slowly. It quickly changes to a shot of a little girl also using a white mannequin hand to remove vines off of the bust sculpture. The shot returns to the blank white room from just before but instead, Sweatshirt is replaced with a female version of himself, still using the hands to remove vines off the man. The camera goes back still a still frame of the man with all of the vines back on him before Sweatshirt appears and the vines disappear again. Earl touches the man on the face with the mannequin hands and leans in near his ear while "The Bends" plays very suddenly.

The next scene shows the bust sculpture sitting in a bathtub while a person is washing it with a washcloth in silence. A very brief clip of Sweatshirt at the basketball court from earlier plays before it goes to a different scene in front of a closed curtain. Sweatshirt is seen walking into the frame and moving furniture while "Shattered Dreams" plays. He stands on a top of a chair, rapping the lyrics as the ceiling above him appears to be leaking blood. He is seen next sitting down, looking upwards as water drips on his face. The scene transitions to a shot of Earl laying on a bed as the music is now muffled. He sits up to look at a picture of Earl as a little boy with his father. The picture begins to rattle, falls off of the wall it was nailed onto, and shatters onto a blank white floor.

The music has been silenced as a broom sweeps up the broken shards of the picture frame. It quickly changes to a shot of Female Earl massaging Earl in a bathtub with the captions "Serpent, no reason to hiss" and "Found a reason to live," which are both lyrics from Earl's song "Loosie". A very brief snippet from Earl's song "Peanut" plays ("Like we making food") before immediately changing into the song "Azucar". As the song continues, Earl is seen rapping along with his female counterpart in what appears to be a mirror, until the footage is rewinded and a caption reads "an a-solmenic portrait of a Black woman with whom non engage in mutually tempered push-back". Earl is then in the white room from previous shots, rapping in front of Female Earl, his mother, and his bust sculpture. Earl is seen again in the bathtub, alone this time, and elsewhere, Female Earl is seen holding the white mannequin hands and touching the bust sculpture. The next shot goes back to Earl in the bathtub, still alone, as the final lines of "Azucar" ("See the ghost of what I was, lonesome as I was") echo after a short pause.

The outro of "Ontheway!" immediately follows up as the next scene showcases a white casket draped with the South African flag and filled with the white mannequin hands. The camera moves away from the casket and Earl's father, Keorapetse, says "To have a home is not a favor" (a line from a live poetry reading sampled in "Playing Possum") and applause can be heard as one last shot on the hands is shown before a credit screen ends the short film.

## Cast

 Lisa Gaines
 LaDiamond Blue
 Aria Williams
 Maddox Dutton
 Ian Randolph