The cover of
Some Rap Songs is a shaky, blurry
selfie of Earl smiling, "blurred beyond any easy identification". The facial features shown in the photograph have been noted: the staff of
Atwood Magazine wrote that "The photo's details are still vaguely discernible, namely Earl's blurry face and floating, penetrating eyes", and Dylan Green of
DJBooth highlighted the "teeth stacked together in a terrifying smile below glaring eyes." Several commentators have compared the album's blurry cover photograph with the music itself. Israel Daramola of
Spin called it "an apt visual metaphor for the music itself, both in the image of a spark of life amidst chaos, and in the sense that the creative process of taking the photo may have been ruptured as it was happening."
Atwood Magazine stated that the album "sounds how this picture looks—unpredictable yet calculated, blurry and distorted yet well-defined". Green wrote of the album's tracks that "The bars and the beats clash in a way befitting" of the cover photograph, and
The A.V. Clubs Clayton Purdom wrote that "That blurry cover and demurring title are no feint; [Earl is] buried in the mix, his voice fighting against crashing waves of old
jazz samples and the cut-up shades of long-gone voices." == Release and promotion ==