Twitter is a great place to be opinionated — that is, until you express an unpopular opinion and begin to receive death threats. That’s what Earl Sweatshirt learned when he announced to followers last week that he wasn’t really feeling Jay-Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail. But even with all the backlash, Earl tells MTV News that he stands firmly behind his opinion.
Hov and Magna Carta began trending on the Fourth of July, when the album became available on the Samsung Magna Carta app and subsequently leaked on the Internet, giving fans plenty of time to listen ahead of its official release date. Some listeners gave it rave reviews, others gave it a lukewarm nod, and Earl Sweatshirt had a definitive opinion in the other direction.
“If you really f—ed with magna carta then unfollow me,” he tweeted on July 11. “im gonna listen to allure and eat a breakfast burrito.” The stream of hateful tweets followed almost immediately, and for transparency’s sake, Earl retweeted plenty of the venom that was directed his way.
“I was not expecting that,” he told MTV News before hitting the stage at his Vitamin Water Uncapped performance in New York on Monday. “Because I wasn’t trying to come foul at Jay-Z, it’s just not my favorite album by him, but I f—-ing love Jay-Z.”
As the barrage of tweets kept pouring in, Earl joked on Twitter, “hahah welp theres goes the last of the black fans i had.” That said, the Odd Future rapper isn’t going to retract his statement.
“I stand by the fact that I don’t like that album, but I love Jay-Z,” he said. “I just thought he didn’t sound like Jay-Z. I’m not delusional enough to think that people don’t change. Everyone changes. I sound a lot different than I did a while ago too and I’m sure there’s people that’s not fans of that and I’m accepting of that.”
“There’s some people that are fans of a certain way that you sound and I guess that’s how I am with Jay-Z,” he added. “I’m a fan of the way he sounded in 2003, so this sh–, when he sounds like other n—-s that’s rapping, cool, but it’s not sh– that I like.”
Earl’s debut album Doris is due out on August 20, and we’re pretty sure he won’t mind if you have a strong opinion about it.
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