Earl Sweatshirt & MIKE | Vivid LIVE

Alongside fellow stars Tyler, the Creator and Frank Ocean, a teenage Earl Sweatshirt first blew up in the late 2000s as part of LA's rabble-rousing hip-hop collective Odd Future, an alternative crew of rappers, artists, skaters and hype-beasts whose West Coast cool shifted the pop culture landscape. Earl would eventually go solo with his top-five smash album Doris (2013) - featuring the likes of Frank Ocean, Vince Staples and RZA - and carve out a singular space in rap with his acclaimed follow-ups I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside: An Album by Earl Sweatshirt (2015) and Some Rap Songs (2018), which saw him blur the lines between hip-hop and avant-garde jazz. His latest album Live Laugh Love (2025) drew rave reviews, moving Pitchfork to dub him "one of the most effortlessly deep and cool rappers alive."

Citing Earl as one of his largest inspirations, who he would go on to influence during the recording of Some Rap Songs, the New York-born rap whizkid MIKE made an explosive debut with the searing lyricism and scuzzy beats of his debut mixtape, May God Bless Your Hustle (2017), wowed critics with his fully-realized follow-up tears of joy (2019), and delivered one of 2025's most acclaimed records in the incisive and extraordinary Showbiz!.

This is the Sydney Opera House debut for both Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE - and destined to be one of the most thrilling hip-hop performances of the year.