“It really feels like a celebration”: MIKE and Earl Sweatshirt discuss their new double album

“I used to pray for times like this” is just one of hundreds of comments flooding Instagram and X after the news broke: an Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE joint album, produced by Surf Gang, is dropping on 3^rd April.

But Pompeii /​/​Utility doesn’t feel like collaboration engineered for hype. In fact, this moment felt inevitable, a natural outcome after years of friendship – beginning when Earl first discovered MIKE’s music in 2016, followed by a personal introduction through their mutual friend and fellow rapper Wiki the same year.

Since then, Earl and MIKE’s friendship has expanded into a fruitful working relationship. After MIKE joined Earl’s Fire It Up Tour in 2019, the pair have been regularly featuring on each other’s tracks. ​“I relate to Mike like my actual sibling,” Earl says, joining via video call from his home in Los Angeles. ​“That’s the foundation that made it easy for the project to come together”.

MIKE, calling in from San Francisco, echoes Earl’s sentiment: ​“We’ve been working toward the same thing for a long time. It was already there.”

Both rappers have connections with Surf Gang, too. The New York-based label and producer collective, which was founded by Evilgiane in 2018, provided beats for MIKE’s 2025 track Belly 1 and Earl’s Making the Band (Danity Kane) in 2023. Though different in sound – with Earl and MIKE leaning towards introspective and unconventional sample and lyrical patterns, and Surf Gang often exploring faster-paced, minimal, mechanical textures – the ethos across all three collaborators is the same. They represent a lineage of artists designing their own systems for experimentation, community and co-authorship.

On Pompeii /​/​Utility, these instincts have become the perfect binding force. Surf Gang’s Harrison and his relentless work ethic sparked the record into existence with beats that pushed MIKE and Earl into new rhythmic territory, while the collective’s intuitive and collaborative approach opened the process up to a stacked list of co-producers. These include Surf Gang producers Evilgiane, Elipropperr and Flea Diamonds, alongside Niontay and RedLee from MIKE’s label 10k Global, with additional production by Earl Sweatshirt, Tony Seltzer, Omari Lyseight, Loukeman, Cajm, Osyris Israel and more.

What begins as a conversation about the double album concept segues into MIKE and Earl reflecting on their friendship, the meaning of a shared sense of ownership, and how this actively shapes the energy of music.Through many stories that emerge from long studio sessions across New York and LA between 2023 – 2025, Pompeii /​/​Utility reveals itself as more than just a rap album. It becomes another node in an ever-growing and interconnected creative world, quietly framing everything they do.

At its core, the album becomes a meditation on identity too. Not as something fixed, but as something constantly unfolding, much like the music itself.

MIKE sums it up best: ​“You don’t have to pretend you’ve got it all figured out. You just have to keep figuring it out. That’s what gives you longevity.”

Cynthia Igbokwe: MIKE, you’ve collaborated with Wiki and The Alchemist, Jadasea, and Tony Seltzer. Earl, you worked with The Alchemist on Voir Dire. How does this project feel different from those, and why did this feel like the right moment to release it?

MIKE: Seeing Haile [Sideshow] and Tay [Niontay] dropping last year, everybody is just putting shit out. Cletus Strap is gearing up to drop his shit. It really feels like a celebration. We’re doing it from a place where it’s not like we have to do it. We get to do what we want.

Earl Sweatshirt: Yeah, it definitely came from having fun. When we met Harrison and Giane, it was around the same time we did Real Hip Hop with Tay. We were having a lot of fun. Wasn’t that the Lisbon summer too?

MIKE: Yeah.

Earl Sweatshirt: People were having fun, bro. So yeah, celebration is correct.

Both of our stuff gets categorised in a pretty sombre lane. There’s still heavy stuff. Surf Gang doesn’t spare heaviness. But when you change the drums, it changes everything. People are like, ​“Oh my God, what has happened to you?”

I know Surf Gang has been sending you beats for a while, and you were both working on projects independently. What prompted the decision to bring those together into one?

Earl Sweatshirt: A big part is Surf Gang’s work ethic. They’ll send you a lot of beats. Enough where, if you’re serious, you can start figuring out a project. We started teasing it as an idea, then we green-lit it pretty soon after. Honestly, there wasn’t much overthinking.

MIKE: These times have been cool because we’ve always helped each other. Everybody’s been here for each other, helping push what we’ve got going on. Even when we were working on the albums separately, around the same time. We’re still helping each other out.

The album is double-sided, with Pompeii as MIKE’s side and Utility as Earl’s. How did that structure come about?

Earl Sweatshirt: I picked Utility first. It started as word association with the metallic sound in a lot of the Surf Gang beats. Then I started thinking about the utility of being a cool person – the value of having social fluidity. Especially in this post-COVID antisocial moment, where young people are afraid of being cringe.

How did that join up with MIKE’S Pompeii?

MIKE: In summertime [2024] I came to LA and we were working at the Warp studio. We was just in there smoking hella weed. Bro, we were so clapped. Somebody joked that the place looked like Pompeii because everybody was frozen and tired. We’d be there from maybe 1pm to midnight. The studio’s this small set up in the middle of this big ass room and there’s nowhere to sit.

Earl Sweatshirt: Maybe two beanbags.

MIKE: You’d be in the little studio inside this big room, and there’d be a n***a in the corner laying on the cement floor. [Both laughing] That’s how we got Pompeii. It started as a joke and then one day we had to make it the title. Also, not to be head-ass, but Pompeii reflects the destruction of a civilisation. Not gradual. Just a wipeout. Even with Utility and Earl talking about the utility of being cool and talking to people, it’s like how you rebuild society after that. That’s something that clicked for me.

Earl Sweatshirt: There are a lot of ways to look at it. The utility of destruction. The utility after destruction.

When two respected artists collaborate, people often assume what it will sound like before hearing it. Do you see this project as a chance for listeners to approach the music with a more open mindset?

MIKE: I got a funny theory. When we first posted the Pompeii /​/​Utility shit, I feel like n***as were like ​“Yo, bro.” Like they had a spiritual awakening. Then they saw the Surf Gang shit, and half the fanbase was like, ​“Aight. We out.”

Earl Sweatshirt: I told you, bro. The ​“real hip-hop” fans are about to be off. To some people this might be the weakest shit we’ve ever dropped. [Both burst out laughing]

MIKE: Some people see the range we have. But then the purists are like…

Earl Sweatshirt: ​“How could you do this? These n***as rapping on beeps and boops!”

MIKE: There were two types of people when they learned Surf Gang was the missing third member. Some people were excited as fuck, which I think is the majority. But I know some hip-hop head was like, ​“Alright… that’s not necessarily what I’m looking for,” lowkey.

Earl Sweatshirt: It’s gonna fuck somebody’s year up for a second. And then somebody else is gonna come and make their year better!

Last summer, you were traveling between New York and LA a lot to record and shoot videos for this project. Do different locations bring a different energy to the studio sessions?

Earl Sweatshirt: New York. That’s the money. That’s the Mecca. That’s the motivation. Of course, I did a lot of the solo tracks in LA, but the real inspiration came from the source.

MIKE: Lowkey, I’m not gonna lie. Someone who deserves more credit behind this, even though he got one on the project…

Earl Sweatshirt: Tony.

MIKE: Tony Seltzer. Seltzer Studios.

Earl Sweatshirt: More than New York, honestly. Seltzer Studios. Big deal. Because he was letting the collaborative juices flow. He wasn’t being a weirdo. He wasn’t just offering the space, he was contributing to it. Excitedly.

MIKE: I’m pretty sure we’re talking about the same period. We’d be there until like 10am. I remember leaving the studio once and running into a young fan on the way to school talking about, ​“Yo Mike?” We’d be in there slapping up, and other people would start coming through. Everybody was just posted up, really locked in at Tony’s studio. It goes back to what we were saying earlier about this just being a great time. The rollout felt bigger than just us. It’s for everybody. Even stories Niontay was telling from when he was working on his project. There were all these interconnections. It’s like reading a Spider-Man comic and suddenly the Fantastic Four show up.

Since you’re both producers as well, and this project is mainly produced by Surf Gang, how easy or difficult was it for you to step back in that way?

Earl Sweatshirt: It’s the opposite of holding back. I got to relearn how to make beats with Harrison by just watching him. Super intuitive. Minimal. Not overthinking.

And when everyone’s together, if someone working on the beat gets bored, they just get up and let somebody else jump in.

How about you, MIKE?

MIKE: It made me realise how controlling I am, lowkey. But it’s a good way to practice letting go. In moments like that you get to live outside of yourself, which I think is important. I’m still learning to do that. Even when we were finishing the project, I’d be on the phone with Harrison and Thebe like, ​“Bro, I don’t know if I should put this one on there.” If I was working alone I’d be trying mad different beats under the same verse, random shit like that. But it’s good knowing the weight isn’t just on me. Other people have a stake in it too.

Earl Sweatshirt: I had that with Harrison too. It’s super tight to be in that dialogue. Just bringing things to the goddamn council or delegation.

Who decides how tracklists are put together? Is it producer-led or artist-led, or does someone make the final decision?

Earl Sweatshirt: It’s definitely a roundtable thing. If someone feels really passionately about something, we usually go with that, because we trust each other’s judgment.

MIKE: True.

Earl Sweatshirt: There’s probably nothing worse than someone hiding indifference with a strong opinion. I never thought about that or could articulate it until right now. I think people do that way more than we realise.

Individually, you’re responsible for your own projects, but when it’s collaborative, do you feel less of a sense of ownership when it comes to articulating the vision, talking about it, and performing it?

Earl Sweatshirt: I think it’s maybe even more so than less. I feel obligated to put a lot into it because of the gift of getting to do this.

MIKE: What I’ve been peeping now that we’re getting into the release is that it’s bigger than me, Thebe, and Harrison. It’s a big thing for everybody who’s been part of what we’ve been doing. It makes me want to take more ownership. Not like, ​“Oh, I’m responsible for everything,” but more like, yeah, we’re really doing this shit. When we start doing the tour, we’re really doing this for us.

[I’m] starting to see everything – no matter who it is or how we do it – as part of the same movement. We all have ownership and responsibility in a sense. It’s like there’s a pot, and we’re responsible for putting things back into that pot. Sometimes someone throws in an ingredient that’s not the most tasty, but it’s our responsibility to add something more nourishing. At the end of the day we’re all eating from the same pot. You ever see those Instagram videos of someone cooking perpetual stew? That n***a been cooking the stew for like two years!

What’s the key thing people should take away from the project?

Earl Sweatshirt: Yo, this is us!

MIKE: As much as you think you understand who you’re listening to, you’ll never fully know. We’re growing the same way you’re growing every single day.

One of the first tracks on the album I recorded is from 2023. It’s 2026 now. I listen back, and I’m like, ​“Damn, I was tweaking.” I was a young tweak out just three years ago! I remember thinking, damn, that’s not who I am today. But I’m also like, bro, I gotta be proud of what helped me get to where I am now.

It’s boring when identity is treated as a fixed thing. As if there isn’t a different version of someone every day.

MIKE: You don’t have to pretend you’ve got it all figured out. You just have to keep figuring it out. That’s what gives you longevity. It also lets people feel like they’re not watching a finished thing. They’re watching something that’s still being figured out. And we’re probably gonna be figuring it out forever. I feel like that’s a good experience.

Earl Sweatshirt: That’s the point of art. How people figure shit out.