Earl Sweatshirt Talks Drake, Rick Ross, Poetry & More

Having just recently announced his ‘Doris’ Tour, Earl Sweatshirt took a moment out with New York Times to discuss a few things. On topic was the niceties of rapper Drake, Rick Ross’s “U.O.E.N.O.” controversy, his comments on the links between poetry and rap as well as the effects of his time at Samoa. Check out a few excerpts down below and swing on over here for the full interview.

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.

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.