Earl Sweatshirt has not been shy in his appreciation for Drake. Earlier in the month, the rapper revealed that he was a huge fan of Drizzy, and in an interview with the New York times, he speaks on his innately Canadian, grandmotherly kindness, as well as commenting on the Rick Ross' "U.O.E.N.O" controversy, and his poetry background.
Read some excerpts from the interview below.
You were just in Toronto. How was that?
It was crazy. Canadians are weirdos, though. They are so nice — overbearing nice, like grandmother nice. Toronto is like a city of grandmas.
The rapper Drake is from Toronto. Is he grandma nice?
Dude, Drake is grandma nice. He was at Frank Ocean’s show in L.A. and got into an argument with Tyler, the Creator’s mom. I left and came back in the room, and she was apologizing to him for how she came at him, and he was saying: “It’s all love. I love you, Mom. I love moms.” Drake loves moms.
Rick Ross was dropped from Reebok because of a lyric about date rape on “U.O.E.N.O.” Odd Future’s music often crosses similar lines.
Rick Ross! If he was everything that he rapped about, he’d be the worst coke-dealing mass murderer ever. People got mad because he said something bad on a cool song. That was ridiculous on Reebok’s part. You picked up Rick Ross, he’s cocaine — that’s what his entire career is.
I think Reebok was responding to the social-media outpouring.
Everyone’s like sheep on social media, like one person starts making noise, and everyone’s like, ‘Hey, yeah!’ and then you got a whole bunch of people making noise at you.
In 2011, The New Yorker reported that your dad, the South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile, had not listened to your music. Has he since?
I haven’t shown him any music. Like if I was a plumber, I wouldn’t bring a sink home to my parents. I’m not actively trying to bring my work into the house.
Your parents gave you the middle name Neruda after Pablo Neruda. You can see why people are curious.
Yeah, it just happens to be that people like to associate poetry and rap music. I think that idea is kind of corny. I think rap music is rap music. I mean, are there heavy writing aspects of it? Absolutely. In a sense is it poetry? Yeah. I’ve heard that so much, growing up in a house with poetry. But I think people like to use that as a shortcut for who’s good and who’s not. It’s like the word “lyrical” — “lyrical” is the worst word in the entire world.
So it’s not a shocking concept that rap could be poetry.
It’s actually so familiar that it’s annoying