Don’t forget Earl Sweatshirt.

Dude. Come back home.

I was completely unsold on the legitimacy of Odd Future until I heard Earl Sweatshirt. Concurrent to that point, I will not believe in Odd Future until he returns. Sharing my overeager fan-boy love of the young Nigerian-American emcee, New Yorker writer Kelefa Sanneh wrote 8,000 words about his strict upbringing and quelled all fears as to the famously “disappeared” rapper’s whereabouts. Outside of Texas rhymer Mike G, the group feels like a bunch of bored teenagers filled with brilliant sounds and tons of pop fury, signifying nothing.

Tyler’s debut album is a two-track masterpiece. “Yonkers” is the one that changed the game and let all the hipsters in, “Transylvania” the one that lets you know that Tyler’s head isn’t ahead of the game, but playing an entirely different sport altogether. Everything else, an incomplete masterpiece, Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony” in hip-hop form.

In my mind, if Earl Sweatshirt ever returns to rap music, he immediately becomes the game’s most important cultural touchstone. In not being a clone of Weezy, Kanye or Rozay, but the 21st century perpetuation of Kool Keith with Slick Rick’s sharp storytelling, he’s what the future looks like. The oddest oddball for the oddest of times. I miss you, dude. Come back home.