{"id":142122,"date":"2023-09-01T20:12:26","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T14:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/?p=142122"},"modified":"2023-09-01T20:12:26","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T14:42:26","slug":"earl-sweatshirt-drops-surprise-album-via-gala-music-crypto-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/earl-sweatshirt-drops-surprise-album-via-gala-music-crypto-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Earl Sweatshirt Drops Surprise Album via Gala Music – Crypto News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For years the rumor swirled, stoked occasionally by the artists it concerned: there existed a secret, never-before-heard album from the rappers Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist, and it hid in plain sight. As of midnight, the album isn\u2019t only confirmed to exist; it is now available to stream and own via <\/span>Gala Music<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Prior to tonight\u2019s surprise announcement, Earl\u2014the one-time precocious teenage collaborator of Tyler, the Creator and Frank Ocean\u2014last officially spoke of the album in 2021, when he told followers that it had long since been posted to YouTube with a burner account, where it featured an elaborately crafted fake album title, cover, and tracklist. Fans searched desperately for the work; it was never found.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A lot of people\u2014even those who spent untold months trawling YouTube\u2019s 800 million uploads for a video supposedly identifiable only by its <\/span>lack<\/span><\/i> of reference to Earl Sweatshirt\u2014wondered whether the album even really existed. But that mystery was kind of the point, or at least a part of the point. In Earl-World, objective truth is often elusive.<\/span><\/p>\n

The artist\u2019s songs have long defied categorization, flipping from deceptively funny to unexpectedly depressing on a dime; his distinctive lyrics, densely packed poetic musings, construct vividly abstract visual collages that resist literal interpretation. As a performer, Earl employs layer upon layer of deadpan and irony. He\u2019s always in on some sort of joke; his loyal followers are often left hoping that they are, too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So last week, when a series of cryptic clues started dropping from the sky, seemingly teasing the ever-elusive Earl\/Alchemist album, the first reaction of many fans was caution. Earl was embarking on a mad-dash, weeklong international tour to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of his first album, \u201cDoris.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

QR codes on the back of price tags for the tour\u2019s merch directed people to a website called <\/span>Gala<\/span><\/a>, where a screenshot of a tweet from The Alchemist read: \u201cSPEAK THE TRUTH.\u201d The Earl Sweatshirt <\/span>subreddit<\/span><\/a> blew up in a speculative frenzy, but guarded skepticism prevailed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t want to get my hopes up,\u201d one user wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Earl Sweatshirt on tour for the “Doris” anniversary in Los Angeles. Photo: Lanre Danmola<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gala Music is an NFT<\/a>-backed, decentralized streaming platform\u2014so theoretically, new music could be coming. But Earl hated NFTs. Or, didn\u2019t he? One Reddit user swore that back in 2022, at a concert in Denver, he had heard Earl announce a plan to drop 10,000 R&B NFTs. But the user wasn\u2019t sure he hadn\u2019t hallucinated the remark; further, most fans agreed that if the comment <\/span>had <\/span><\/i>been made, it was certainly a joke. Earl would never <\/span>actually<\/span><\/i> touch the blockchain.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Learn what sarcasm is bro. It’ll help you in life,\u201d one commenter <\/span>chided<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the clues kept raining down. At the first stop of Earl\u2019s \u201cDoris\u201d tour, in downtown Los Angeles, fans found more mysterious QR codes, taped everywhere, that they could scan to receive free concert posters. Over half of the show\u2019s 2,000 attendees did so. Those posters led back to the Gala site once again (music.gala.com\/hahaha<\/a>), which now featured riddles that, if answered correctly, offered access to several more vague posts, including allusions to the legal phrase \u201cVoir Dire\u201d<\/span> and GPS coordinates to a jazz venue in London.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Earl Sweatshirt fans pick up free concert posters in Los Angeles (secretly) from Gala. Photo: Lanre Danmola<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the next four days, at \u201cDoris\u201d<\/span> anniversary concerts in Chicago and New York, the mystery continued to unfurl\u2014more posters and more clues. On Monday, a successfully solved crossword puzzle revealed a track list for an album called \u201cVoir Dire,\u201d apparently cementing its existence. But by that point, the foreplay was becoming excruciating for some.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cProof or fuck off NOW,\u201d one Earl fan <\/span>begged<\/span><\/a> in exasperation.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Earl Sweatshirt fans pass a mysterious QR code at the Los Angeles “Doris” show. Photo: Sander Lutz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earl, for his part, wasn\u2019t helping in terms of clarity. Towards the end of the LA concert, which featured prolonged cameos from \u201cDoris\u201d<\/span> collaborators<\/span> including Tyler, the Creator and Vince Staples, The Alchemist took the stage to delirious applause. Perhaps the two might address the hubbub? No; The Alchemist approached Earl silently with a large cake, let Earl blow out the candles, and then walked promptly back off stage, grinning, without uttering a single word.<\/span><\/p>\n

The panic finally cleared at midnight ET today, when the entire 11-track \u201cVoir Dire\u201d album\u2014yes, the very same secretly crafted years ago by Earl and The Alchemist\u2014dropped on Gala<\/a>, where it will stream exclusively.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 4,000-something concertgoers who scanned QR codes this week to nab \u201cDoris\u201d<\/span> posters will soon find out, if they haven\u2019t already, that they now hold wallets on Gala, which each contain a limited edition NFT of a \u201cVoir Dire\u201d track. A total of 1,000 NFTs exist for each track, adding up to 11,000 overall\u2014a few more than Earl supposedly promised last year in Denver.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Any NFTs unclaimed by scavenger hunt participants are set to go on sale today for $225 apiece, although anyone with a free Gala account can stream the album without buying it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Owners of \u201cVoir Dire\u201d NFTs can use them to earn rewards on Gala, by pairing the on-chain digital tracks with a node that will stream the songs to the masses via Gala\u2019s decentralized user network. Gala rewards can now be exchanged for numerous live experiences, including featuring in one of Earl\u2019s music videos, FaceTiming him and The Alchemist, or potentially (pending some legal clarity) getting smoked out by the duo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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An image from the music video of “Sentry,” one of the tracks on “Voir Dire,” that was released without context this week in the build-up to the album’s drop. Photo: Earl Sweatshirt\/Gala Music<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s unknown to what degree Earl\u2019s fanbase will engage with Gala\u2019s tokenized ecosystem. But if they want to listen to \u201cVoir Dire,\u201d there\u2019s only one place they can go to hear the whole thing. A single from the album, \u201cSentry,\u201d featuring the rapper Mike, dropped today on traditional streaming platforms.<\/span><\/p>\n

That type of direct engagement with mass audiences is rare in the ecosystem of crypto-backed media enterprises, which have struggled in the last few years to onboard users beyond the insulated bubble of die-hard decentralization enthusiasts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gala Head of Partnerships Julian Khalifa, who helped launch the \u201cVoir Dire\u201d<\/span> collaboration, sees the experiment as something of a path forward for crypto-affiliated media projects looking to make a material impact on mass culture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be about the music first, the culture first, the fan-artist connection first,\u201d Khalifa said. \u201cMost of these fans don’t realize that they’re interacting with a Web3<\/a> platform. A lot of fans might be turned off if we were talking about NFTs and wallets. And that’s perfectly fine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Khalifa believes, however, that once Earl Sweatshirt fans experience firsthand the benefits of a more direct relationship with their musical idol and his creative process, they might be converted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis technology can create a fuller music experience,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are things I don’t think any other Web3 companies are doing, but also that no other tech company or music company is doing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It makes sense why Gala would want to partner with an artist like Earl Sweatshirt, given the authenticity of his ethos and the zeal of his fanbase. But why did Earl partner with Gala?<\/span><\/p>\n

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Earl Sweatshirt performing in Los Angeles on August 19. Photo: Lanre Danmola<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Surely, had the rapper dropped \u201cVoir Dire\u201d on any traditional platform, even with zero warning, Earl-World would have lost its mind. So why the scavenger hunt, why the blockchain element, and why all of this during an unusually hectic tour for an unrelated album?<\/span><\/p>\n

Does Earl care about decentralization? Does he want a more direct relationship with his fans? Or\u2026 this isn\u2019t all an elaborate bit, is it?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For several days, this reporter attempted to contact Earl Sweatshirt through numerous intermediaries, in pursuit of answers to any of those questions. Only just before publication, as Earl flew from New York to London for the final stop of the \u201cDoris\u201d<\/span> anniversary tour, did the rapper’s team communicate a single-sentence explanation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t find the album on YouTube,\u201d the message read.<\/span><\/p>\n

After tonight\u2019s London performance of \u201cDoris,\u201d at KOKO in Camden Town, Earl is set to head to the nearby Jazz Cafe\u2014located at the GPS coordinates teased in a clue earlier this week\u2014to debut \u201cVoir Dire\u201d live with The Alchemist. The public is invited to attend; some may still have to go and see it to believe it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Editor’s note: This article was updated after publication to clarify attribution of a quote.<\/i><\/p>\n

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For years the rumor swirled, stoked occasionally by the artists it concerned: there existed a secret, never-before-heard album from the rappers Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist, and it hid in plain sight. As of midnight, the album isn\u2019t only confirmed to exist; it is now available to stream and own via Gala Music.\u00a0\u00a0 Prior to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[230,225,221,227,226,228,229,60,223,224,222],"class_list":["post-142122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-brave","tag-coinbase","tag-crypto","tag-decentralised","tag-decentralized","tag-decentralized-exchange","tag-erc-20","tag-featured","tag-meme-coin","tag-robinhood","tag-solana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142122"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146737,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142122\/revisions\/146737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}