The Normal Life of Earl Sweatshirt
A long, intimate conversation about fatherhood, fascism, and his surprise new album ‘Live Laugh Love.’
- Written by: Ross Scarano
- Photographed by: Yudo Kurita / Servicio Represents
- Styled by: Sage Elsesser
“These days, a lot of the time, I’m happy,” said Earl Sweatshirt, almost conspiratorially. The announcement came nearly two hours into the conversation, like a revelation or the punchline to a cosmic, apocalyptic joke. We talked about techno-fascism, Scientology, death, inheritance, and artistic sacrifice, and this was where it led.
Earl Sweatshirt wears Stone Island.
He demonstrated his happy face, arranging his mouth into a wide grin. A second passed and his expression, behind rimless oval glasses, remained fixed like a mask. This was happiness, with a current of anxiety and stress at the corners of his wide eyes. A very 2025 happiness, in other words.
Live Laugh Love is an eye roll-inducing phrase best associated with the decor aisle of a suburban department store, and yet it is the name of Earl Sweatshirt’s new album. The artist, who once rapped “my heart cold like the fucking carrots at the grocery store” has warmed (though he has a sense of humor about his own gloom, clearly). The album contains the prettiest music he’s ever made.
His wife, the actress and comic Aida Osman, delivered a healthy baby girl earlier this summer and Earl, 31, is ready to talk about all the visceral details. But this record is not a long-winded therapy session or saccharine ode to marriage and settling down. He still uncorks tough talk worthy of a hard-boiled novel, like the opening of “CRISCO”: “Gran Turismo, hop out the fishbowl with a fistful of cash and a lit bogie.” But on that same song he skates breathlessly through heavy thoughts about parenting and the many shapes fatherhood can take, not all of them kind or peaceful. “Pops was kinda janky, his replacement beat the failure out me,” he raps, taking in gulps of air as he pushes forward.
Live Laugh Love is a daytime record, in touch with the natural world, with memorable lines referencing minerals and the elements. He often recorded after exercising with friends, like the Queens-born producer and frequent collaborator Theravada, who contributed to almost half of the album, and though his vocals are sometimes tough to excavate from the off-kilter loops, like on the back half of “Live,” the album is clarifying, like a deep breath. The last lines on the record are a compassionate wish, albeit from a distance: “I’m airmailing you strength.”
This was my second conversation with Earl—the first was about billy woods— and the artist born Thebe Neruda Kgositsilehe was loose and discursive, honest and excited to riff on rap music and his life. (Two hours is about twice as long as the combined length of his previous two records.)
Talking about the birth of his daughter (he has a son from a prior relationship), Earl unfolded stories filled with awe and humor. A recent visit to the pediatrician turned into a routine about communication. “The doctor was like, ‘Look at her back!’” he said. “She literally said it like that. I was like, ‘What? Medicalize this language,’” he laughs. “Don’t say it like that.”
His daughter is “buff as hell,” he said, a proud father.At one point, we talked about how to live as an artist, and he described the jazz musician Sun Ra, who was notoriously merciless as a band leader. “The concept of removing things from a ship so that it can move faster—there are some people that are trying to go very fast,” he said. “They’re willing to throw everything off of the ship so that it can move faster in the wind. I grew up with jazz musicians, and because you’re not doing gangster rap or whatever the fuck, niggas is like, ‘you chill, you positive’—because you play the saxophone. But them niggas invented a lot of this shit. Sun Ra said I had to sacrifice everything to be myself, and I feel him.”
But Earl did not want to be like that.
“I come from it, and to me, it's corny,” he said.“My contribution to it is, be a little bit normal. Not all the way, right? I just had my daughter and I'm in Portland, musing about things. But be a little bit normal. Like, change a diaper. That’s it.”
Earl Sweatshirt wears Stone Island.
Ross Scarano
Earl Sweatshirt
The last time we talked you were preparing for your baby. How’s the family?
I’m baby life-ing this shit up right now. We had our baby like a month, month and a half ago. It’s really a secret society, parents. With the ritual and everything, with the crazy blood fee. And then it’s like, OK, now go back outside.
Labor is the craziest shit I’ve ever seen.
I’ve seen dead niggas. I’ve seen people die. That shit is crazier than that, because it’s not death. Someone has to be like, “Oat milk, please,” after that—and it was just like the movie Hostel in that bitch. Me and Aida were just talking about that. Definitely for two weeks you don’t realize that you’re walking around like [haunted, thousand-yard stare]. Everyone’s like, “Congratulations, congratulations!” and you’re like [still wide-eyed, frozen]. That shit is hilarious.
Where are you right now?
Portland, and this shit is horrifying.
What part?
Downtown.
Downtown Portland is kind of gnarly.
It’s the scariest shit in my life, bro. As you climb up the Pacific Northwest, you start to see a theme. San Francisco is the Mecca of the tech revolution, and then it emanates upward and downward on the coast, to Seattle and up to here. And by the time you get here, it’s really colored by—I don’t know a lot about it, I just know that there’s the history of secessionism here, on some Texas shit.
Real anti-government militia stuff.
That is definitely the vibe when you get up here. If you want to get a feel for tomorrow… You got to scan your receipt to get out of the grocery store. A nigga with a pistol that was strapped around his thigh opened the door for me for Powell’s Books. Like, here, go get your James Baldwin book—read that up. Go get a banned book. But if you steal that shit, I’m going to shoot you in the head.
Earl Sweatshirt wears Stone Island.
The last time I was in Portland was fall 2024, right before my kid was born. I was visiting college friends, like a last hoorah.
It’s a good one for that.
But troubling that it’s also a sign of America’s techno-fascist future.
If these aren’t Berlin vibes, then I don’t know what are. This thing where these formerly magnificent cities are now at this tense, awkward place, where people are trying to proceed with the cushy things, but the fascism is getting less coy, to say the least. I feel like I’ve been seeing other people say it, but you can definitely cross-reference this to other times when nations was about to do this. It’s weird, and people keep eating cereal.
But as a new parent, what am I supposed to do? I gotta go pick up my kid from daycare in two hours.
Oh, for sure. Kids are the best because you seriously know what you have to do. Having kids in this shit is so scary, but it’s not allowed to be scary.
I’m trying to balance those two realities of: This is scary; I’m afraid for the future my son may have. And then also I need to be happy and play with my son right now.
Literally. That’s what you have to do, scientifically, for your son’s best development. You have to play with him. And it has to look good.
I can’t have worry on my face.
We just read about the still-face thing. You heard about it? It’s in the parenting books and shit. If the parent is looking at them with a straight face, the baby will be in more distress, they’ll cry more, and then it makes it harder for them to learn. They don’t play as well, so they don’t learn as well.The other day I was playing music and at a certain point I was like, “Is this a happy mix? What the fuck?” Real happy, though, not abstractly happy. Not even So Much Fun by Young Thug happy. It was The Go! Team and shit. And someone’s like, “What are we celebrating?” I was like, I think I’ve just been with a zero-year-old for hella long, so my shit is like [jack-o-lantern grin, waves hand].
All the time. “Hey!”
Slept for 12 minutes. Hey! How we doing!? Someone’s screaming at you, like they’re being murdered. Hey! Hi! Yes! That’s good! Literally good job.
I have your literal shit on me, and it’s like, this is great!
You’re like, yes! Because the gas was crazy.
Earl Sweatshirt wears Stone Island.
How does it feel to promote a record right now?
It’s hard, for sure. But this is what I have to give, to provide for my family. When we started this, [Aida and I] looked at each other and she was like, “Go to work. For real.” Which is everything. That anchor is everything. It’s not for show, it’s not even intellectual, you know what I mean? It’s like, damn-near biological.
Throughout the pregnancy, I’ve been working harder at music than I ever have in my whole career, because of [her support]. It’s liberating. I feel like that’s the secret of the parent society. You could say the secret out loud, it’ll still protect itself. Before you have a kid, it’s the nightmare for your young life—you’re like, it’s the death of me, I’ll never be able to do what I want. Which isn’t true. Because what you want to do is provide for your incredible-ass lady and baby. And then I’m blessed enough to be paid to do what I love, so I get to go hard at that to provide for my family. I’m not going to just spit on that opportunity. That is more reason to turn up than ever. Parent to parent, you know what that shit does. It’s serious.
It’s funny you say that. I feel like I’m doing some of the best work of my career and it’s not because my back’s against the wall and I’m under pressure to do it. It’s more like what you were saying, where I have the permission and support of my family.
Having the security of family, it’s like, “Go. I know what’s up with you. I got your whole shit. Go.”
My partner is back to work too; I’m holding the house down when she’s on work trips, so it feels really reciprocated. And that’s going to happen for you too.
100%. Her shit is going to be crazier than mine.
Have you had the experience as a parent where certain art hits you differently now? For instance, I was watching a coming of age movie not long after the baby was born, and I found myself identifying with the parents, whereas before I would’ve watched it and been like, I’m thinking about this adolescent kid.
Yes, absolutely. Both of us. The dad’s tripping and it’s you. You understand the psychology of a nigga.
Earl Sweatshirt wears Stone Island.
I don’t think I mentioned this the last time we talked, but my dad died in 2021, so I find there’s something different about being a dad without direct access to my own father. [Ed. Note—Earl’s father, the poet Keorapetse Kgositsile, died in 2018.]
I feel like that’s the most dadded-out shit of all time. That’s the most father-core thing of all time—your kid’s grandpa being a word. Think about it. You kind of look like the biggest tadpole in an evolutionary [chain] to your son. They don’t know what y’all look like beyond you.I’mma go woo-woo on it. They’re more with us. They got to be more with you, if they’re not here—but through you, because you’re a dad. And there’s not any dad that you’re more like than your dad. I saw it after my dad died. It was funny as shit. I was fucked up and I was in the bathroom and I looked up and how much I looked like him, I startled myself. And what made that was how hurt I was. We were closer physically because of the way I’d been afflicted. It is weird, bruh. It gets real haunt-y. It’s like subsuming. I always had the experience when people close to me die, it’s like you get a little something. I mean, they only can live in people’s minds now. If you’re not hating yourself or your parent, then that process kind of happens naturally. It’s a lifecycle process.My mom’s partner died and I started cooking like a motherfucker, and that was her partner’s whole thing. I’ve always been cooking, but shit gets left with you. You know what I mean? This is yours now. I just seen the thing where they said on the quantum side, there’s no individuality. Entanglement characterizes everything.
So even the idea of your individual psyche isn’t really true.
Yeah. It’s based on the whole. I feel like the closer you get to your side of that, then you get to you and yours. You know what I mean? Your dad; your son. You just change roles. It’s like how you said: you’re watching the movie and you were the kid and now you’re the dad, and you look a little bit different, but it’s pretty much the dad. Something like the dad you had, you’re that dad.
When did you record this record?
This was the daytime record.
It sounds like it.
I would either finish working out or playing basketball with Theravada and then record. And there are some, like “Exhaust,” I was getting fucked up—not on drugs, I was drinking. And “CRISCO,” I was drinking. I think that’s why I ended with “Exhaust,” because “Exhaust” is one of the first ones I had. And the opening track, I think that song came at the point when that daily cycle was up and running, which is why you can hear that I was laughing.
It sounds like you’re smiling the whole time that you’re rapping.
Yeah. That one was actually smooth. It was not a big deal, because it came, not when I was finding what the process was going to be, but once I was dead in the middle of it. I feel like this [record] is the same thing for certain people that are in this age group as I Don’t Like Shit was then, where it’s this commentary and sign of the times. It was 2014 and for a generation who had grown up doing different stuff, it was a new lifestyle setting in and the grief from that. Like, “Oh my god, I’m becoming someone who doesn’t like anything.” And I feel like now, so many of us—my peers, people in my zeitgeist—motherfuckers got kids, bro. Niggas got kids. So live, laugh, love! If you got kids, that’s it. Like you said: Bombs! Ahhh! But—live, laugh, love. Be nice to your sister type-shit.
One of the things I like about the record is you have a really chill attitude about people going their separate ways in life. It comes up in the lyrics often, and I feel like that’s very much a parent thing and a mid-to-late thirties thing. People are going to drift apart. It’s OK.
A hundred percent. I feel like by the time you get to your thirties, you’re not even fucking mad anymore. Like bro, we don’t even hang out. But I love you. For me it’s really easy: How do I feel if they die? You don’t see ‘em every day. Whatever. Are you sad that they die? Yeah. Just tell them that sometime: love you, shout out you. Shit’s smooth, man.
Is your mom happy to be a grandmother again?
Bro, that shit is the shit I am the most grateful for. I told you her partner passed, so it was really the cycle—a year later, the baby girl. The baby made everything make sense for everyone. These days, a lot of the time, I’m happy. I got a baby. The simplicity of the shit found me. That’s the thing with the title, I was initially being snarky: Live, laugh, love—because everything’s fucked. Live, laugh, love, that’s so scary right now. But no: do that.
Sincerely, earnestly.
Now. Get to it. People need it so bad. I feel like the goal of my life has been to stay alive long enough for all of the cliches to become profound. Because that’s the point. I can tell from old people, because of how they say them, that they’re all profound. Treat people how you want to be treated. Shit that make you want to pull your hair out.
Ross Scarano is a writer and editor from Pittsburgh. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Believer, The Wall Street Journal, The Ringer, GQ, Pitchfork, and Complex.
- Written by: Ross Scarano
- Photographed by: Yudo Kurita / Servicio Represents
- Styled by: Sage Elsesser
- Grooming: Alexa Hernandez / The Wall Group
- Production: Chloe Snower
- Lighting Technician: AJ Wilson
- Styling Assistant: Miles Chick
- Date: August 22, 2025
