"Yeah, sure. Of course," he mumbles, eyes adroop.

We head to the hotel's roof, where bartenders blast pop music to an empty patio and gray clouds collect menacingly overhead. Below, New Yorkers scuttle from building to building, umbrellas tucked under their arms. The city, it seems, is bracing for a storm.

···

GQ: When I turned 19, I spent my birthday watching "Bruce Almighty" with my parents. Or maybe I went bowling? Please tell me yours was cooler.

** Earl: **Nope. I played video games with my friends and ate tacos.

Still better. What's the biggest difference between Earl Sweatshirt in 2009 and Earl Sweatshirt now?

I'm fucking grown now. I was a little-ass kid in 2009. I've figured shit out – well not figured shit out. That's ridiculous. Not in some pretentious way, just as a result of time.

Same question, but this time for Thebe.

Same shit. I don't draw a line between them.

Let's talk about Doris. There's a lot of pretty overt talk of mental illness on the album. At one point in the track "Sunday," you and Frank Ocean rap in unison, "What good is West Coast weather if you're bipolar?" At another point, in "Burgundy," there's a voice-over that asks, "Why you so depressed and sad all the time like a little bitch?" How did your own experience with mental illness inform this album?

I don't know about mental illness, but I'm a sad bitch sometimes. That's the shit I'm more attracted to, so even if I'm not, the shit that gets me excited is all very moody and unstable. That's some shit that I don't even see changing. Like, I can't make that good of music when I'm happy. Some shit has to happen that either pisses me off or that's very grave.

It's a really personal record – very different, content-wise, from Earl.

Yeah. I didn't know how to say anything [back in 2010]. I didn't know how to keep a thought focused when I was young, and it kind of sounds like that. Like, it's tight or whatever, but it's just all over the place. I'm still figuring that shit out. I feel like that's probably my next thing – focusing more. Because I can do it when I'm _writing. _That's probably better for the music anyway, when it's more impulsive.

Doris is still impulsive, but it's far less abrasive than Earl. I tried to count how many times there's a reference to raping or killing someone on Earl, and I just gave up.

I'm an adult. I can't be fucking talking about raping people and shit. That shit's crazy. As an adult, if you want to talk about rape, there's certain shit that comes along with it.

As part of your program in Samoa, you worked with victims of sexual assault, yes?

Yeah, so you get to see that side of the fence, and then it's just fucked. That's what I'm saying. That fully draws the line, where it's like you can stand on either side. Either you're a fool that is down with fucked up shit – I mean, I'm a fan of macabre shit, you know what I'm saying? But not like that. At the end of the day, I'm not some evil guy.

Was there a crucial moment you realized that?

It was instant. There was nothing you could do when you're looking at a fucking little girl that's been horribly abused. It doesn't even need to be gradual. And there was never a moment where I was trying to fucking perpetrate like I was some [rapist]. I still have so much fun performing Earl. That shit was what it was. That was our way of like, screaming. That was my way of screaming, because I don't yell.