Over the past 12 years, Earl has collaborated with the likes of Tyler, The Creator (his fellow Odd Future member), Frank Ocean, Mac Miller, Flying Lotus, and countless other icons of hip-hop’s new vanguard. A wunderkind by all accounts, Kgositsile, now a father himself, has a lot to celebrate—and process. To help him break down the significance of another trip around the sun, Kgositsile called up the National Book Award-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates (from bed, of course) for a conversation about young fatherhood, aging as a Black man in America, and the bitter taste of good art.