It’s No Mystery: Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist’s ‘Voir Dire’ Is Available to Stream
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Devotees of Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist have been scouring YouTube to find their “mystery album” for years to no avail. Luckily for the scavengers, the beloved artists released their collaboration album Voir Dire last month, and they dropped the DSP version today, with three new tracks in tow — including two with close collaborator Vince Staples.
In 2019, The Alchemist tweeted that he and Earl dropped an album under a fake name and put it on YouTube. In 2021, he doubled down, noting “We hid a whole album on YouTube under a fake name and YouTube page. Fake album cover, song titles, the whole 9. Nobody found it yet.” As of today, no one’s claimed to have found it. As hip-hop myths go, the project is on the same cupboard as Detox and other would-be albums.
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The two are noncommittal about how many songs from that project made their way onto either version of Voir Dire. When asked about the overlap, there was a considerable pause before Alchemist told Rolling Stone, “All of them. None of them.” Regardless, Voir Dire is the long-awaited melding of two pillars of the rap world: Earl’s experimental, assonant poetics and Alchemist’s trove of obscure, arresting samples. Their chemistry is on both versions of Voir Dire, as Earl culls his considerable intellect and shows off his lyrical supremacy on such as “Vin Skully” and “27 Braids.”
The first version was uploaded to Gala, a platform site that sells art as NFTs and Crypto. Both men are adamant that Voir Dire isn’t their attempt to save the freefalling non-fungible token market.
“It was always going to be on DSPs. That’s what’s annoying,” Earl tells Rolling Stone while lounging on his couch during a Zoom session. “I feel like from afar it looks like an NFT album. It’s not a goddamn NFT album. You don’t have to buy a fucking NFT to listen to it.”
Alchemist, sitting on the balcony during an alarmingly warm fall day in New York adds, “I like to think from the perspective of ‘how can we shake them up a little bit?’ They may know what to expect with the music, but how can we come out of left field a little bit and just walk a different path? Not for the sake of championing any technology or anything like that [but] just to go left and intrigue a little bit.”
Fans impatiently awaiting Voir Dire’s arrival on DSPs were rewarded with new music, as “Geb,” “My Brother The Wind,” and “All The Small Things” were switched out for three new songs: “Dead Zone,” “Mancala,” and “The Caliphate,” the latter two featuring Vince Staples. When asked about the impetus behind the changes, Earl surmised, “Different hats for different occasions. It’s a Gala party, you got a DSP party, man. Can’t wear the same shirt to the events.”
The two say they mostly recorded Voir Dire at The Alchemist’s home studio in LA, in between surfing YouTube, listening to music, and having the kinds of conversations genuine friends have. Observing them during our 30-minute Zoom session made it apparent how easily the project came together in between shit talk and smoke sessions. When Alchemist lauds Earl as “one of the best ever rapping and one of my favorite artists to work with,” Earl jokingly calls him out for never saying that to him in private.
Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist talked to Rolling Stone about Voir Dire, Earl’s growth as a writer, and what Vince Staples is like in the studio. The interview, lightly edited for clarity, is below.
What made now the right time to release Voir Dire?
Earl: Something about the fall, man. There’s something about that crisp autumn air…that vernal equinox. [Both laugh.]
Do you actually get more inspired during the fall?
Earl: I don’t know. Maybe. I think it was time. Al, what do you think?
Alchemist: I feel like the times always present themselves. You don’t consciously choose when a thing comes out. It’s just like records for sampling. You know what I mean? It’s like when you’re going to do it, it tells you when.
Earl: I’ve seen some of the homies do it though. Mike always picks some [specific] date. He always picks a solstice. A winter solstice or some shit. So it can be cool…I’m sometimes envious. I be wanting to pick a cool date. I would just make some shit up after the date gets picked like, “Yeah, I always wanted it on 10/6. That’s the day when I first started 10th grade.”
How did the idea come about to initially put the project on Gala?
Earl: How did that idea come about?
Alchemist: It just came to us just like the date, the time to put the music out. Things just arrive and you got to know how to move the pieces on the table and make sense out of them. It’s like when you see the burning bush or something like, “All right, that’s a sign.” Because when it comes to the craft, I think both of us put over a hundred thousand hours in. So it’s never a matter of are we ready or is this the right move? It’s kind of making sense out of the pieces that are in front of us. Same way, like I said, I would draw a parallel to sampling because it’s like if I have a bag of records, I’m making what’s here. So I have some parameters that I’m working with. So you feel like it’s the same concept of seeing what’s in front of you and making good out of it for whatever the different reasons were that we ended up going the path we did to put the music out.
Had you considered that path with previous releases?
Earl: Like he said, it was literally for this one, it made the most sense.
Alchemist: I like having fun with everything I do. Some people say that we work hard and we put out a lot of music, but it’s because I make sure to entertain myself with it. And I always think like a fan first because I still love music. I love a lot of things. I’m a collector of things. I’m a fan. So I like to think from the perspective of, “How can we shake them up a little bit?” They may know what to expect with the music, but how can we come out of left field a little bit and just walk a different path? Not for the sake of championing any technology or anything like that [but] just to go left and intrigue a little bit.
What do you have to say to the people who were discouraged and wanted it to be directly on DSPs?
Earl: It was always going to be on DSPs. That’s what’s annoying. I feel like from afar it looks like an NFT album. It’s not a goddamn NFT album. You don’t have to buy a fucking NFT to listen to it. You just have to go to this website that you’re not used to being on and to listen to it, which is annoying…whatever.
So to be clear, it’s not a statement on how revolutionary NFTs are or anything like that?
Earl: No.
Alchemist: We’re just trying to get Earl do things to have fun. I think it was interesting. I was sitting back with the popcorn watching shit on both sides. You got both sides of the coin. You got people who were mad. You got people who were like, “Come on now. It’s free.” It was almost like this case study on humanity, because I didn’t see too many gripes about the music. The conversation became about things that were never… I remember back when SoundScan came in and I remember now girls used to be like, “Yo, he looks good, but what’s his first week?” And I remember tripping out like, “Damn!” This was never even a thing. [Laughs]
Earl: People started becoming involved…like motherfuckers knowing what a rollout is.
Alchemist: It’s interesting to me. It is fun. If someone is upset, I’m not even mad. I’m enjoying it and I’m glad we have an opportunity to put music out that even makes people feel the way. It would be worse if we put some shit out and it was just like a tree in a forest. You know what I mean? So I don’t think this album was a tree in the forest for sure. So I’m happy.
Some fans definitely have that armchair analyst aspect about them that hinders the way they can even enjoy the music sometimes, which is a little weird.
Earl: Being aware of what’s happening. It’s like being awake for surgery. Just cool it out, man. Let it happen.
Do you feel like the launch was successful and did what y’all wanted it to do?
Earl: Yeah. I mean, we got to do both. I think that’s the win for me in all honesty. Trying shit out and it worked. It would’ve been weird if it didn’t. That would’ve been super awkward. I would commiserate with niggas if it was never coming on DSPs. If we did the Wu-Tang album move.
How many of the songs on this album are from the “hidden album”?
Alchemist: All of them. None of them.
Okay. So can you take me into how it came together? Where did you record it?
Earl: I’m going to say it was mainly in LA at Al’s crib.
Did y’all record it in waves or was it more of a gradual thing?
Earl: I think waves for sure. I think there was probably three waves of recording.
Alchemist: We were able to shape it over time and kind of pick things. Sometimes we lost the record and ended somewhere else, but it was like an overtime kind of. Thebe is always putting together projects. At any given time, you’ll go on his computer, he got a playlist. We all make music all the time. He might have two or three albums on his computer right now with names, album title, and everything. So slowly we were collecting records.
Earl: Without a goal too. That’s the best part. We were just making these songs without the pressure of them needing to be for this on an album or that on an album. We were just making them as they go. And then the game was how do you organize it so that it’s a play-through?
Alchemist: This is probably just a technical thing, but for me, it was dope because sometimes when it comes time to mix his records in the past, he records in different places on different mics, different setups. This was all one setup, one cook. So we were able to keep a cohesive sound, which was dope for me to just try like, “Damn, let me see if I can get Earl all in one.” Sometimes we would have to work hard to get the sounds or a lot of times it was on purpose to make a record sound different. And I think it was fun and it was a dope challenge for me.
Earl’s definitely one of the best ever rapping and one of my favorite artists to work with. So for me, he was on that list for me of this is my man, this is my brother, but we have to make a whole album. Roc Marci was on that list. We had been 10 years friends before. I pressed him. I never had to press [Earl] because this happened naturally. Any couple more years, I probably would’ve been like, “Yo-“
Earl: It would’ve been weird.
Alchemist: I work with literally my favorite artists. There’s not a list of guys that I wish I could work with. The guys that I work with I feel are the best. So this was definitely a monument for me just in all the years of knowing Thebe and being like, “Damn!” Because even getting a joint on his album every year was a big look for me. I’ve been in this game for a long fucking time. So it was a blessing when I met him however many years back, to connect with a new friend that you could build with and make music that lasts. [People love] “E-Coli” or some of these records we made just fucking around at the crib. So this was a big step for me.
Earl: Thank you, bro. Come on. Yeah, man. We be sitting around chillin’. This nigga don’t be saying none of this shit. Nigga be waiting until we get on the interview.
[Alchemist laughs]
What’s Vince Staples like in the studio? Is he as hilarious in the studio as he is everywhere else?
Alchemist: Absolutely.
Earl: Yes. He comes as advertised. Vince Staples acts like Vince Staples.
Alchemist: It’s like his computer processor goes faster than everyone else’s. The maxed-out computer, I think his processor’s faster than even him. The way he computes things and thinks is mind-blowing.
Earl: He has a lot of information about a lot of subgenres of human and non-human life on earth. The nigga is like a weird California historian. He knows mad things about Pioneer towns or some shit.
Alchemist: Yeah. And I would never even dare fact-check him. I just believe everything Vince tells me. Nah, it has to be fact. He’s too passionate about it.
That’s funny though because I wanted to ask you about one of the lines on “Mancala:” “I love my partner, but he Chris Bosh, Cuz can’t shoot.” I was like, “Damn, he thinks Chris Bosh can’t shoot. I feel like Chris Bosh is a prototypical stretch four.”
Earl: [Laughs] Get his ass, bro. That’s all I’m saying, bro. You got to fact-check this nigga, man.
Alchemist: “He can’t shoot with his heart.” That’s a deeper analysis.
That’s the distinction. Okay, cool.
Earl: Okay. Bro, that’s the whole thing. You might get excited. You might fuck around and be like, “Hold on, bro. But Chris Bosh is a pure stretch shooter with heart, bro.”
Alchemist: But I feel like the original line was something about his wrist being soft too.
Earl: He changed the verse for sure. He went crazy on the original version.
What made him change the verse?
Alchemist: Vince has never spit a verse that wasn’t A1, I don’t think. I’ve never heard a subpar Vince verse.
Earl: Only Vince is a Vince hater. Vince will record the craziest shit you ever heard, then press you on needing to re-record it after you’re like, “Bro, I think this is really, really, really hard.” He’s going to press you to re-record it. And then when you’re like, “Bro, I like the other version,” then he’s going to adamantly let you know why you’re stupid for liking that other version.
When you say re-record, do you mean just the vocals or even the lyrics?
Earl: The lyrics. “Switch up this.”
Alchemist: Yeah. He’s into detail. He might switch a syllable. He might switch a syllable on your ass. Now that was a different syllable, not a whole word, a third of a word.
Can you speak to why MIKE is great and why y’all wanted him to be on the project?
Earl: MIKE, man. Baby Jesus, man. New York City. That’s my guy. It’s out there, bro: I make music with my friends. Mike is a dear friend of mine. My friends is the niggas that’s around by the time I’m ready to record some music. He is one of my favorite rappers ever. This nigga is incredible.
Alchemist: He’s one of the great ones. And I had a friend who I was telling him about him and he checked him out and then he went and saw him live. Hit me up after and was like, “Yo, I love him.” If you ever see him live… He’s a big dude, but he’s smiling. He just radiates love. He’s just an infectious person. When you see him on stage or in general. MIKE is the real deal.
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.
Do you feel like you always had that combination or was that something that you had to-
Earl: That developed with time. I’m not going to lie. I think to put it on a graph, the younger that I was, the less discernment that I had. And maybe I hadn’t smoked hundreds and thousands of pounds of weed yet. I was probably firing quicker…A critique of me from some people is that I don’t preoccupy myself with trying to say the most unique vocab… Even though I still, I don’t know. Fuck with me, bro. I do try and sneak some good vocab words in there, but it’s just not the main focus.
That’s a thing? People talk about your diction? I’ve never seen that.
Earl: No. That was an oversimplification of a thing. I feel like some of the critiques I see are of “under rapping,” I guess, which I can only attribute to me doing less sometimes.
There was an audio clip of somebody speaking in between “Caliphate” and “The Ruler.” I was wondering who that was and the significance of putting it on those two songs.
Earl: It’s Miriam Makeba. I didn’t find the clip, [Alchemist] came out the cut with that. I don’t know where that’s from. I’ll let him tell you why he put it. But to me, when he showed it to me, it perfectly fit the home stretch of the album. That interlude and her voice is a soft refuge from whatever energetically happened with “The Caliphate” and it eases you into the kind of fairytale-sounding ending of “Free The Ruler.”
I saw that y’all swapped out three songs on the project from the version that’s on Gala. What was the impetus behind those swaps?
Earl: Different hats for different occasions. You know what I mean? It’s a gala party, you got a DSP party, man. Can’t wear the same shirt to the events.
How do the songs for the “DSP party” shift the project, if at all?
Earl: You’re getting Vince. And instead of the more slightly somber nature of all the small things, it’s a similar beat even in instrumentation and shit. But just the vibe is a little bit more whimsical on the heat check.
Was there anything that y’all read or watched that was particularly impactful during the creative process of the album?
Earl: I feel like there was a lot of shit that was important to the creative process of the album. There’s a video online of B-Real narrating a documentary of M.O.P. That shit is hilarious.
Alchemist: Yeah, that was inspirational. We always add a lot into the soup when we’re creating. I don’t know what the percentage is of actual recording and creating music and the percentage of just looking at stuff, getting inspiration [whether] it’s a documentary or surfing on YouTube looking at different things. And the span is ridiculous. So it really is fielding inspiration. A lot goes into it. It’s when you finally go and actually record so many things that went into it already that you’re not even… It’s the conversation you had. It’s whatever we were drinking. It’s like the things we were looking at, the argument you had earlier. A lot goes into when you create, it’s hard to pinpoint it. But I don’t think it was one theme we had. It’s just whenever we get up, it’s natural the way you probably are with your homies and you’re listening to shit.
Earl: Yeah. It was like, again, let me live my life at this crib. So there was everything that came with life. There was good days, there was bad days that I recorded.
How much did the creative process help on the bad days?
Earl: Immensely, bro. Yeah, it helped me make sense of some shit.
Alchemist: He’s usually a one-take guy I’m not going to lie. When I think back, most of the time we keep his first take. And then sometimes he’ll just go in, but if he got to keep knocking away, he’ll record three versions of it and then he’ll probably even cut you. Usually, from my recollection…I see him going over his shit a lot. Even if he writes it on the spot, by the time he goes to the mic, he got a real idea of what he’s trying to do. So it’s not going to take [a long time to record]. And then sometimes I’ve seen him go in there and shift shit on the spot. There’s some songs on the album like “Mac Deuce” [where] I still don’t understand how he made the words connect.
It is like some tricky writing he did where I think some of it, you’ll have to ask him, I think he knows what he’s going to do, but then sometimes he’ll make that executive audible magic that is like, “How did you write that?”
Earl: Yeah. Those will be the exercises where it’ll be like, all right, I’ll know while I’m sitting there writing it that maybe the thing that I want to do I don’t know 100%, but I’ll be there and I’ll try it. That’s why I’ll be sitting there because I’ll be trying it over and over again trying to get it on the one spot. So then I’ll finally… That’s why I just wait until it’s hot. I wait until I have it and it feels like I could take it and then it’s having to pee or throw up. “All right. I got it. I got to get it right now.”
Alchemist: But it’s crazy because he experiments with the placement and the rhythm and the timing, but he’s a writer first. His words come first. That’s why he can always put his shit on paper and it’s so profound. He really is a writer. I rarely see him change the words. It’s really the pockets and the tone. He’s writing what he wants to say and he finds a way with the other shit.
Earl, I saw that you tweeted recently about eager fans who were ignoring the reality that you’ve actually had a lot of output over the past couple of years. I was wondering how much, if any, of that recent output was about the fan feedback versus just your own desire to create?
Earl: It’s definitely my desire to create. I literally don’t even know what else to do. That was more a response to me at a certain point just throwing my hands up at a nigga talking about when are you going to drop? It is like, “All right, nigga.” It just seems disingenuous [and] I’m frustrated when [I] just dropped some shit.
Alchemist, you dropped Faith Is A Rock with MIKE and Wiki. I was just wondering if you could speak to the impetus to create that and how you’re feeling about it being out in the world?
Earl: We connected last year with our homies Patta, a clothing brand from Amsterdam. And we did three songs to go with a little capsule they did and they were part of the campaign. We basically made more songs than we could use for that. So even back then it was like, “Yo, let’s just continue and make a little project.” And I think both of them are extremely dope artists. Wiki has been in this shit 10 now. He’s damn near a fucking legend. So it was easy to do and it was fun. Those are the types of projects I like doing. It’s like another batch of dope New York shit that’s happening in real time. And they’re all extended family with all of us. We got the tour coming, MIKE’s opening. So it’s all extended family.
So like you said, you have the album coming on DSPs, the tour coming. Is there anything else that you’re going to be releasing or putting out to help promote the album or-
Earl: Just vibing, man? Visuals.
Alchemist: We got videos coming for sure. We have videos, we got merchandise.
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