How did Tyler, the Creator meet Earl Sweatshirt?
McCartney and Lennon. Jagger and Richards. Andre 3000 and Big Boi. Some of the greatest music in history is punctuated by the power of a creative partnership. The pair doesn’t even have to even be in the same band; Kanye West and Jay-Z, for example, struck a brilliant balance between individuality and coalition that saw one Watch the Throne become one of the biggest albums of the decade.
Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt, as fans will contest, are another example of a brilliant duo within modern music. Closely connected through rebellious rap scene Odd Future, the collective Tyler set up in the late noughties, the two rappers shared a brilliant and notable creative chemistry that would come to shape the developing alternative hip-hop scene.
Known for its contrarian approach to the hip-hop genre, vivid hipster imagery and shocking, rebellious lyrics, Tyler was the larger than life group leader. Earl, on the other hand, emerged as what many consider to be the collective’s most gifted lyricist. Tracks such as “AssMilk”, “Rusty” and “Oldie” highlight the raw energy that was Earl’s sharp verses alongside Tyler’s electric presence.
How they came to meet in the first place is a great piece of the Odd Future lore. In 2009, Tyler discovered Earl Sweatshirt – then known as Sly Tendencies – through Earl’s MySpace, where the musician had uploaded tracks he recorded for his Kitchen Cutlery mixtape. How very Millennial.
Despite the mixtape never being released – it wasn’t even finished – Earl was invited to join Tyler’s Odd Future collective. A year later, his studio album Earl was self-released as a free digital download on the group’s website, with most of the album produced by Tyler himself.
Odd Future gradually began to fade as zeitgeist shifted and the rappers grew up and started pursuing other avenues of music making. Tyler became a visionary producer and rapper, while Earl pivoted towards more abstract, emotionally charged songwriting. And yet – in a story relatively rare to their genre, but nonetheless a relief to fans – they remain on great terms with one another.
“That’s my n*gga… we just aren’t as close as we were,” Tyler said in an interview. “It’s kind of weird, but I’m aware and smart enough to know, okay, shit changes, people get older, people’s goals change.”
This is a sentiment Tyler repeated at Coachella last year. “Earl muthafucking Sweatshirt! My muthafucking brother. I love this guy so fucking much.”
The past few years have been particularly successful for Tyler, who has solidified his status as one of his generation’s most exciting and authentic voices. He won two Grammys for Best Rap Album for 2019’s Igor and 2021’s Call Me If You Get Lost. And his next two albums, 2024’s Chromakopia and 2025’s Don’t Tap the Glass, were similarly revered by fans and critics alike. All four, amazingly, debuted at number one in the US.
Earl Sweatshirt signed with Warner Records in 2019 and released EP Feet of Clay, which was followed up by Sick! in 2022 and then 2025’s Live Laugh Love, an album that, whilst didn’t perform majorly on the charts, received stand out acclaim from critics and long-term fans.