In a series of comments, Earl Sweatshirt has responded to JPEGMAFIA for what many perceived as a diss against him.
In an interview with Pigeons & Planes, which can be seen below, JPEGMAFIA spoke about his decision to name his upcoming album Experimental Rap and declared himself the king of the sub-genre.
“Other people in this genre, they want to pretend and try to be cool and be like, ‘I don’t want to be experimental rap. I want to be something else. I want to fucking rap like Lucki. I want to make songs that the young people make,’” said JPEG. “I don’t really need to do that. I can just be myself, and I let other people try to figure out who they are at 40 or whatever.”
In the interview clip, he also suggested that “nobody” can do what he does when it comes to hip-hop and that nobody can copy him.
In the comments, Earl appeared to agree that JPEGMAFIA was taking shots at him and his peers. After sharing multiple crying emojis, he wrote, “Nobody copies cuh because his music is gnarled rough and ugly (derogatory).” He added, “Lmao leave me alone pls I make music with my friends that I have (derogatory).”
JPEGMAFIA later responded in a comment that has since seemingly been deleted. “1st off n***a your career is gnarled and rough, you the first n***a since Joe Budden to go back underground literally,” wrote JPEGMAFIA, 36. “2nd stop saying ‘cuh’ your 32 and you went to boarding school. 3rd neither you nor your friends would ever say none of this to my face. But thank you for the promo little guy.”
Earl continued to comment on the post after JPEGMAFIA replied, clowning the rapper for wearing leather and sarcastically expressing his excitement for Experimental Rap.
“You know what bro my fault I misspoke,” wrote Earl. “Bro is the king of making crunchy ass music and wearing muay thai shorts, super excited for the album brother (positive) seems like its gonna be really experimental.”
Whether JPEGMAFIA was subliminally calling out Earl Sweatshirt with his initial comments shared with Pigeons & Planes is unclear, but the rapper previously namedroped Earl Sweatshirt and his frequent collaborator, the Alchemist, last year. Speaking with Billboard at the time, JPEG declared himself “one of the only risk-takers in rap” and name-dropped Earl and Alchemist as two artists he believed have been “making the same fucking song for the last twenty fucking years.”
