Kanye West vs. Earl Sweatshirt

[Editor's note: Since this article was published, Kanye West reportedly postponed his Rogers Arena gig -- for the second time. We still encourage you to read on, in the event the rapper ever finally performs in Vancouver.]

Vancouver rap lovers are faced with a difficult decision this Halloween, and I'm not just talking about the choice of whether to dress up as Snoop Dogg, Snoop Lion or Snoopzilla. I'm referring to the fact that two of the year's must-see shows -- Kanye West and Earl Sweatshirt -- are both happening tonight (Oct. 31).

We can blame Kanye for this double-booking. He was supposed to come through town on Oct. 20, but a last-minute delay -- allegedly because his crew wasn't able to tear down and reassemble the absurdly lavish set fast enough -- meant that it was pushed back to Halloween.

Kanye can get away with eleventh-hour postponements like this because he's one of the biggest stars on the planet and is acutely aware of it. He thinks that the world revolves around him, and the fact that he was able to rebook Rogers Arena for a new show less than two weeks later proves that he's right.

This megalomania rises to the surface on Yeezus, his brilliantly twisted new album. Its 10 hard-hitting tracks find him shooting the shit with Jesus ("I Am a God"), tackling America's racism issues ("New Slaves"), and recounting sleazy sexual scenarios ("I'm in It"). I won't quote him here, but Yeezy's lewd sex fantasies are so raunchy that they prompted a roundtable discussion from a panel of female critics.

This leaves me feeling a little guilty for enjoying the album so much, but I can't help but love it when he's got beats as brilliant as the circuit-fried "On Sight," the tribally aggressive "Black Skinhead," or the blood-chilling "New Slaves."

Compared with Kanye's sense of self-important grandeur, Earl Sweatshirt's public persona these days is far more low-key. This is somewhat surprising considering the 19-year-old's origins as a member of the Los Angeles shock-rap collective Odd Future, which is widely known for its offensive shenanigans and brutally non-PC rhymes. The rapper's debut mixtape, 2010's Earl, was so lyrically repulsive that many have suggested it played a role in his mother's decision to ship him off to reform school in Samoa (although Earl has since said that he was sent away for non-musical reasons).

Earl's time in Samoa seems to have had the desired effect, since this year's Doris finds him in relatively mellow, contemplative form. This is particularly apparent on the stunning "Chum," on which he bares his soul over a plunking piano motif by ruminating about his absent father, his troubled relationship with his mother, and his fraternal friendship with Odd Future's Tyler the Creator. Although, if I'm being honest, my favourite line is a tongue-twisting quip about "sins feeling as hard as Vince Carter's knee cartilage is."

Lyrics aside, what really makes Doris so brilliant is simply the sound of Earl's voice, which seems impossibly deep and world-weary coming from a skinny teenager with a pencil-thin wisp for a moustache.

So really, the decision of whether to see Kanye or Earl comes down to this: do you want to see an up-and-comer with vocal cords of gold, or do you want to watch a deranged genius hang out with a Jesus lookalike and climb a mountain? There is no wrong answer.