Earl Sweatshirt Says Anyone Complaining About ‘Mumble Rap’ in 2025 Is ‘Probably Racist’

Fresh off the release of Earl Sweatshirt’s new album Live Laugh Love, the 31-year-old rapper sat down for an interview on the New York Times’ Popcast to offer his opinion on people who are still complaining about mumble rap in 2025.

When discussing the craft of rapping, Earl explained that he’s very interested in employing every trick in his bag and expanding his talents. “I definitely want to always be expanding my linguistic capabilities,” he said around the 17:30 point of the interview, as seen below. “Vocabulary, like, ability to speak different languages and shit. I was talking about that s**twith MIKE a couple weeks ago, where, like, if you’re in 2025 complaining about mumble rap? Mhm, probably racist.”

He suggested that it’s a frustrating and dismissive description of an approach to hip-hop. “If you haven’t processed that different people talk different ways, and that it’s not they fucking job to fucking make sure that you from Kansas understands every single word… Why are you not trying to aspire to learn new things?” he said.

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Elsewhere during the chat, he spoke about his relationship with fame and how he’s been trying to “turn the hype off” ever since his breakthrough during the Odd Future days. “I think I was trying to [turn] the hype up so bad when I was 15 and 16,” he said, suggesting that he also wanted to slow down his music a little. “And then I was like, ‘No, I don’t want this at all.'”

He also addressed his decision to send an imposter to “perform” the album at its release party this past week.

“You sent out a stunt double, is that an open illusion to MF DOOM?” he was asked. “DOOM was obviously there in the thought process,” he replied. “It was like, ‘Oh, a doppelgänger.’ And then I was like, ‘I have an idea.’ … Yeah. They had, like, a thing. I didn’t want to go to it. I don’t like playing music for strangers and them looking at me.” He added that he wasn’t even present during the release party and was at his office “moving furniture” and “eating.”

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