Earl Sweatshirt emerged in the late 2000s as the teenage prodigy of the Odd Future collective, a crew that built a cult following through self-released music and a skate inspired aesthetic that redefined underground rap in the early 2010s. Now, Earl returns with his fifth studio album Live Laugh Love — a 25-minute record featuring production from Theravada, Navy Blue, and a closing track with Erykah Badu.
Earl’s ability to take life seriously—but not himself too seriously—is undeniably apparent. It can be heard throughout his discography as he tightrope walks between moments of philosophical wizardry and slang-ridden comedic jokes and references. Listeners feel like they are kicking back within his inner circle, participating in inside jokes as well as the deep conversations that occupy poignant personal moments over spliff smoke. On his newest release, Live Love Laugh, lackadaisical deliveries balance out complex rhyme schemes on cuts like Static, which feel like verbal shadowboxing. Cutty references sprinkle their way throughout the tape as splayed thoughts and hazy musings clear the air from “the gargantuan amount of weed” (NYT) that Earl says he smokes. Folkloric references and confident conclusions appear through obscure nods and explorations of the artist’s mental nooks and crannies. Earl’s approach to his craft is obtusely diverse and eclectic, pulling from many angles, approaches, and references—like the many paths, avenues, and directions that a pinball machine offers. Tracks might feature an outro from comedians like The Mandal Man, sharing mindful considerations on self-avoidance and procrastination, whereas others start with blunt, mundane realities through lyrics like, “Hop out the fishbowl with a fistful of cash…and a lit bogey.” The artist’s signature self-awareness seeps through simple lyrics like this, where what feels like a rap flex is beginning is actually punctuated by being a simple man—don’t forget the lit bogey.
Earl Sweatshirt in conversation with Daniel Soprano for Issue 11 of Living Proof Magazine
Photographs by Ian Buosi
I’ve been interviewing for like 4 years and it’s crazy. I don’t really get nervous for interviews anymore. But this interview I was because your music and your presence was so important to me and my friends during my formative years. I don’t know how old you are, but I’m about to be 29.
Yeah, we’re right there. We would have been at like high school together. I’m 31.
I feel like we were growing up at kind of the same time. Your music and skating always felt so enmeshed to me. I wondered if you, especially around that 2012 to like 2018 era, were noticing that connection too.
I mean, absolutely. For me, they were one in the same. To be honest, I didn’t know that I wasn’t a pro skater until like my homies were really, really, pro. I was spending a lot of time really improving my skateboarding. I was trying to get ads in Transworld and shit, but then the fucking learning curve got too crazy. Seriously. Then my homies finished growing up and so they could jump over cars and shit and it was like, alright, I’m about to go skate with the rest of the older people like this.
It’s true. The friends you were around became great skaters.
It was like, bro, I am not jumping on this rail, you got me super fucked up. I mean, I was super serious about skating. I still am, I’m not going to lie. I don’t skate as much, but I’m a ballerina bro. I’m not saying in practice, but we always said skaters and ballerinas are the most snobby about form and shit. I’m definitely a ballerina in that sense where I’m very offended by bad pushes and shit. You know what I mean? Fake swag, bro.
It’s true. The other thing that I was thinking about was that obviously Dill had FA for what it was prior, but I feel like when FA was being turned into a board company, you were there at that early inception. When I think of that time when we were all buying FA boards, your music was synonymous with that.
Bro what, for sure. I was in the think tanks about the shit in real life helping structure it out. We even went on the tour. That was, I think, the only one of those that I’ve seen. Skate/ music tour. The shit was fucking funny as hell.
I know in other interviews you’ve spoken about how I Don’t Like Shit kind of feels like your true debut. Do you feel like, for a while, you were living a double life — between who Earl was and who Thebe was?
For sure, for sure. Definitely had to consolidate.
How did you bridge that?
If you break your arm and then it heals wrong and then they have to re-break it to set it. You have to break. If it’s growing weird then you have to. It’s painful, is what I’m saying. It’s painful to swim upstream.
It’s hard.
Exhausting. But if that’s the way you’re trying to go, then you gotta do it. And then it ends up being less exhausting. It’s less painful than like being in a spot where you don’t want to be at, you know what I mean?
Wasn’t there a point, and I could be wrong, where you were thinking about changing your name?
Hell yeah. That shit was funny as fuck. I was going to be Earl Fletcher.
Earl Fletcher?!
Yeah, Nak will still throw a “Fletchy!” Like he’ll still fletch me sometimes. We were going to go with it. That shit killed me because it just sounds like Sweatshirt.
Was it just to be funny or was it to move on from OF?
Definitely, definitely. I was squirming. I hadn’t completed the actualization yet, or I felt I hadn’t or I was in the transition. I was also finding out what it meant to be myself.
Of course! You were a young man.
Fuck yeah. I guess I kind of just ended up filling up the Earl Sweatshirt thing with myself so that they would be synonymous.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like so that double life went away.
I mean, I’m better at it now, I guess whatever “double life” meaning just like I have a very firmly established secretary, but that secretary only is good at very quick interactions. Meaning it’s like “Hell yeah, appreciate you”, “That’s love”, “Hell yeah”. It’s a hell yeah fest. Just a lot of affirmations. It’s like a bear wanted to take a selfie with you. You’re like, “Hell yeah.” Bear is large, but yeah, “Hell yeah, bro.”
It’s like desensitizing.
People don’t afford you, you know, humanity. You forget that ‘you’ — because of however they think about you — they don’t contextualize what they’re doing to you, like if someone did it to them, how they would feel.
Right. Do you feel that fame or the music industry has made you lose parts of yourself that you valued?
No, it just makes me work harder to find it — and that’s anonymity.
Oh, that’s a good one. Yeah, because you’re a known man.
That means you just gotta put yourself in uncomfortable places.
Give me an example of these places.
Places where people don’t give a fuck about what you got going on. There’s so many different places. A place of worship or like a trap, you know what I mean? A jail. A senior citizens home.
Where status is meaningless.
Or where status is based on different things. Where people don’t care about whatever status you’ve built up in the online space. Where the metric is different. Some people don’t like that though. You work hard, you work real hard at music or whatever. And then you’re like, I want to enjoy these spoils. But then if you think about it, you’re having a constant abnormal experience. You need to also be mindful that you contribute to your presence and perception. I’m chilling. I’m on Melrose right now. Like you haven’t even heard one go down and there’s like mad groups of people with street wear that have walked by me. You know what I mean? It’s how I’m carrying my own self.
Right, right.
Like you start to act like a famous guy. You know what I mean? I guess the most cartoonish, simplest representation of that is someone that’s popping out. That’s like, ‘No photos, please.’ I would say it this way: you can’t hide anything. I think people think they can hide parts of themselves with art — but it’s actually the most direct form of communication, where even if you’re lying, that is going to come through. People might not even hate you — it’s just not going to… the things you’re lying about aren’t going to stick. That’s not what’s going to be the thing that keeps people listening. People pick up on what your fucking soul is trying to communicate.
Oh for sure man, that’s how longevity happens.
Yeah, but even I’m saying, even when people try and mask it, that still comes through and is manifested in the lack of interaction that people have with that music.
One thing that’s always gravitated me, personally, to you, was your level of open vulnerability on records. It was also everyone close to me as well because we found your music at a pivotal time. Being 15-16 years old is like, you know, a really important time. Has it ever hurt you or have you ever regretted that you let the audience in on what you put on a record, since you give so much of yourself to us at times?
Man, absolutely.
Depression, substance abuse, suicidal, grief. Heavy shit my brother.
I talk about that shit with Mike all the time bro, because he has the same shit.
Those are big emotions. Those are real.
What people end up missing is what’s right next to it. It’s the totality of it. I think with both me and Mike, like we might mention something about this heavy grief that we’re experiencing, and then it’ll also be right next to us talking about beating someone up or some shit, you know what I mean? I feel like people sometimes, even though it’s well-intentioned, will end up focusing on just the one part because it feels weirdly cathartic. But then watch, it’s about being mindful about not becoming addicted to that shit either. I think because some of the grief and shit that niggas dealing with is actually huge and actually has tried to like claim niggas total self. That’s why sometimes actually what’s necessary for us is having some shit that’s not that going on. Not just sitting and staring at a wound, like attempting to fucking dig yourself up.
I know it’s only on SoundCloud, but you make a song like Wind In My Sails? Holy shit, like that level of depth and word play, that’s deep emotion. I remember when that came out, my best friend Xavier showed me that song. At the time, he was battling whatever and I was really battling my shit. To have an artist like you feel like you’re kindred spirits through their music.
Yeah, exactly, that’s what I’m saying. It’s like some of this shit, it’s erasing the distance or the perceived distance between you and someone. The outermost parts of the two circles and then focusing on the part that makes it a Venn diagram. This is what happens and it’s against the same backdrop. You can even track tech through the albums you know? I don’t like shit, I remember feeling so pleased or it was such the correct thing or sentiment of the time, because that’s when I think the first real, burnout started from the Internet.
It wasn’t as fun anymore.
Word, like I actually don’t like anything and I’m not going outside as much as I should be. Going there is part of that path because then it was like Solace and all of that shit. It was like Solace and fucking Wind In My Sails. It was like we’re out here now, figure it out. It felt really Lord of the Flies-y, ‘cause like we didn’t even have that many levels of supervision. It was truly a time to raise ourselves, just specifically us, the fools you’re talking about, the skateboarders. You know what I mean? We didn’t have our big brothers. We didn’t have our parents. We were just figuring that shit out.
It was truly a discovery time. I just like, I remember Solace coming out. I just remember all that and everyone I was around was just going through really big deep emotions. At the time, everyone was just experimenting with drugs, trying to figure out their mental health. That music coming out paired well because that was the exploratory kind of sounds I think people needed. People didn’t at the time want positive music for lack of a better term.
Bro zoom out too though even before we get too positive or negative, just at the experimenting phase. Zoom out and that was happening everywhere at that time. It was wild, like what the fuck is about to happen next? You got Chief Keef and you got fucking Young Thug like these are the new kings. Lil B, that run wasn’t done yet. Like it’s literally like we’re fucking out here. That was the whole thing of the time. Like it’s just forward, forward you know what I mean? Really just abandoning conventions at that time, everyone.
Do you find that people having high expectations of you creates this pressure that pushes you towards greatness?
“No one’s expectations are higher than my own.“
-Earl Sweatshirt
I think that that’s a great thing personally.
Yeah, I learned that I thought people had high expectations. I’m actually sick.
Well, maybe that’s not a good thing then.
It’s not for everyone.
I’m not blowing smoke. I feel like you don’t waste a word in a verse. You’re very methodical. We all know your music. You’re extremely intelligent. Every song you put out, nothing’s wasted. So I just don’t know if it’s from external pressure. I know you obviously have personal pressure.
No, it’s me. I like puzzles. I like riddles. A lot of that shit gives you longevity. It gives you a language. You also can start to develop your own glossary, you know what I mean? Your own book of references. Start actualizing yourself.
Of course he’s passed now, but did you ever want to work with Ka?
Hell yeah.
I feel like you and Ka would have made an amazing album.
Yeah, for sure. We just had to lock in. There’s only so much we’re going to accomplish, and that’s zero, unless we’re spending actual prolonged time together. We would kick it and shit, but we never got to like live with each other. Like enough to do something like that significantly.
We worked out though.
I feel like I remember you speaking on the idea of birds of a feather in the past.
I was just talking about that shit today.
And like getting in where you’re loved. I feel like after OF. I wonder how much you felt on your own, but it feels like you found a new family with some of your old friends like Sage or whatever.
Yeah, I think our family was just so big. There were just different zones, you know, different ages. Like we had to figure things out for ourselves because there were so many of us that you could split off into pods and we were all fucking kids, bro, right? Like, OK, over there, over here, Tyler, kind of like the Loiter Squad gang.
So in the birds of the feather sense, I noticed you’ve been with the 10K crew.
For sure man.
Now, obviously it’s not like a new OF type shit, but I don’t know. I watched, ironically, the Camp Flog Gnaw performance, and it felt like a family, like the way you brought out everyone, the love you guys clearly all share for one another.
Dude, I mean, that’s what we got from what we put in. I met Mike right at that time. He was 17. He was just about to go through everything that I had gone through. You know, heartbreak and all that shit. I was in New York, I think I was 22 or 23.
Still so young.
I think one thing about it was just allowing myself to learn. I don’t know if people do from younger people without taking advantage of the power dynamic.
Exactly, such a good point! Such a good fucking point ‘cause that’s kind of like, you’re learning from people that are new dude.
And it’s like, be honest. Bro, the way that this life is designed so that we can keep surviving is that people that are younger than you are going to have new and better ideas than you bro. And then especially if you have the honor of them being inspired by you, it means they’re improving on some groundwork that you laid out. It’s literally like, why wouldn’t you learn? You know what I mean?
Of course. ‘Cause they already learned from you, but, people just wanna peep game and gate keep.
Exactly, but they already learned from you. You have to play catch up. They know. They studied you already. You don’t know them. Like get to know them, what they’re doing, and then it’s back and forth. Then it’s synergistic. It’s literally, “Oh, I see what you did there”, then you’re like, “OK, what about this?” And they’re like, “Oh shit”, And then they are like, “Nah, what about this?” Then you’re like, “Oh shit”, and then you’re building.
I respect that so deeply, and it makes it all more clear now. Cause I was wondering why are you doing projects or features with people that are newer and not going for like, people like a Jay Electronica? Why are you not pursuing like, I don’t know, these bigger artists?
I leave that to people and I just go where it’s the simplest. I was confronted with the reality of my career pretty early on and I had to figure out what it was that I valued and what it was that people valued. And it was the music. I go where people have a loyalty and an affinity and a seriousness about the play of the music man.
Was there ever a time where you were trying to pursue bigger features.
I think so, yeah. When I was younger, when that was kind of the decree, I guess. That was what was appropriate for me at that time maybe or what I thought was appropriate. I think seeking out a feature because of its size, I don’t know. Maybe perceived likeness has always been the thing. And then sometimes you find out who you’re alike and who you’re not alike.
You know how, I guess for a while, Drake was kind of doing it like he was kind of going to a newer artist and being a feature for them to kind of like put them on in a sense, but also kind of give himself relevancy.
It’s smart, it’s smart.
But you seem to actually love the people you work with.
I was just about to say bro, yeah. It’s kind of the opposite of don’t mix family with business. It’s like, try and vet it so that you can make it as close to a family business as possible.
Makes sense to me. In your interview at Ohio University, you said that when you became a father, one way that you changed was you had to learn to love yourself so that you could truly love your child.
Absolutely.
I found that to be a very beautiful and powerful sentiment, simplistic, but deep in that it could take a lot of change and attention. How does Earl cultivate self love?
Remembering that I’m not alone first and foremost, ‘cause I think when you think that you’re alone, then you have unrealistic expectations for yourself. You can end up being really mean to yourself and then you can also end up being narcissistic because you’ve determined that you’re like the only one that can do anything for yourself. So let others shape you ethically. Hopefully that means what I mean.
*Full interview available only in-print. Intro writing by Wes Knoll.
This story was written for the release of Issue 11 of Living Proof Magazine. Now available on our Patreon and Online Shop.
