Thank you to everyone who read my last email as well as those who gave to the Gofundme. I’m very grateful for your kindness, attention, and generosity. I’ve re-evaluated my budget and have what I need, but I’m making one more push for financial contributions before closing the campaign. Anything over $2800 will be redistributed to the Roots.Wounds.Words crowdsourcing fund to help subsidize costs for other attendees. So now I’d really like to urge you to give if you’re able :)
For the first time in a long time I wasn’t asked for an opinion on the new Drake album, but I did choose to take in some of the discourse and it is chaotic — I think that’s Aubrey’s intended effect. While scrolling I came across a nug from an interview by Andre Gee with Earl Sweatshirt and Alchemist that encapsulates the tension of writing really well. Allowing for reflection and practice and the time it takes to trust yourself, but also developing some rigour and urgency in the prose. This is about taking responsibility for the feelings your words elicit, and acknowledging the energy and competence of a reader/listener. Craftsmanship as an act of love. A good reminder that, despite what the discourse suggests, there’s always another way.
Earl, I wanted to ask: As a writer how have you gotten so good at encapsulating so much into one bar, a half a bar like: “How you ‘gon allocate me my own fuckin’ land?” I feel like somebody could try to make a whole song out of that and it wouldn’t be as impactful as the way you phrased it. How did you develop that?
Earl: Out of necessity. Trying to express some of the intangibles. That’s why niggas write or do whatever creative practice they undertake, whether it’s cooking or architecture or whatever it is. It’s just how you make sense of things. I think realizing and thinking about how to be effective with communicating in an age where people’s attention span was dwindling contributes a lot to the pursuit of speaking proverbially. And trying to be succinct and pack a lot into a little because motherfuckers don’t have time to sit around while you kind of try and figure some shit out.I feel like that’s the mark of all of my favorite music isn’t necessarily… I think great talent is a really necessary component to being great, but discernment and wisdom and consideration contribute to the rest of someone’s staying power because those other things will determine the love and care they put into the creative experience. So you’ll feel it in the listening experience and how they’re not trying to fucking talk your ear off like how I just did right now.