This was a discussion between Thebe Kgositsile(aka Earl Sweatshirt) and his mother Professor Cheryl Harris held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles California. The topics discussed were random really, from earls new album, his mom getting social media, and life in general.
earl: y'know the internet seems to be a much more... they tend to change topics really quickly now, and I feel like one thing that might be frustrating to everyone that's like my age right now is how your computer will like assess you, like very quickly. all of y'all smart phones, computers, have a read on your personality. the things you like to say, which song you gon play at like 11, so yeah, its much more vicious
cheryl: its faster
earl: its faster and a lot of things that constitute the complete human experience get lost on the internet with the rapid *flicks the wrist* y'know what I mean.
cheryl: but you've become the master of two minutes
earl: but that's, what you mean? oh because... the bars?? you switched from the internet to bars... but yeah that's part of the reason why actually, as people, I started to care less about the third verse as peoples attention spans started to get shorter and shorter and that's fine its cool
cheryl: I know we had a debate about that when you first told me that you had these two and a half minute songs
earl: oh for "some rap songs"?
cheryl: yeah for some rap songs and I was like "I don't know man is that actually gonna give people enough" and before you talked to me and explained it, well first of all I had to stand down cause it was his project, but the second thing was I remembered back when I was young, way back, on the songs we listened to Motown songs were all two and a half minutes and the way we learned them was we just put them on repeat, and that really helped me understand that there was a connection, right, and that even though it was something different, the times were different, understanding that, first of all, if the music is good, it doesn't matter how long it is, and secondly we actually do want framed repetition
earl: the concept of the loop, you keep coming back. uhm yeah, two minute songs, uh.
cheryl: so what have you been listening to lately?
earl: what have I been listening to, I've been listening to a whole lotta billy woods, I showed you that guy
cheryl: yeah, he's great
earl: ive been listening to, what have I been listening too... ive been listening to what we made *points at the alchemist* ive been making a lot of music
cheryl: you've been listening to your own music
earl: yeah ive been listening to my own music
Cheryl: well that's a good thing, that's a good thing
earl: what you've been listening to??
cheryl: ive been listening to a lot of classics.
(then I stopped filming cause my arms were tired sorry if you wanted to hear what cheryl was listening to but she mentioned a fondness for Motown and that's classics so I can assume it was things from that era)