Next month, underground rap giants Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE will join forces to release the new double album POMPEII / UTILITY. It's not a collaborative record, exactly. It's two albums packaged together — one from MIKE and one from Earl, with the adventurous SURF GANG collective producing the entire thing. We already posted the first two singles, MIKE's "Earth" and Earl's "Minty," and the two rappers only collaborate a few times on the album's 33-song totality. Today, they've shared one of those collabs.
"Leadbelly" comes from UTILITY, the Earl Sweatshirt half of the new album, and it has a joyously sleepy energy, as if you can smell the late-night session where they cooked it up. Earl and MIKE switch back-and-forth mid-verse, talking shit and looking back at their pasts. SURF GANG members Harrison and Elipropper co-produced the fizzy, languid beat with regular MIKE collaborator Tony Seltzer, and Richard Philip Smith and Ian Lopez shot the murky video. Check it out below.
POMPEII / UTILITY is out 4/3 on 10k/Tan Cressida/SURF GANG/the Harp. Starting in June, Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE will tour North America and Europe together.
