So now that Odd Future is closely associated with an MTV venture, it may be time to talk about them.
This L.A.-based, teenaged rap crew numbers just shy of a dozen and is spearheaded by main rhymer Tyler the Creator, who is signed independently to XL. He released the mixtape “Bastard” last year.
More of a cult than a Clan, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All will likely be remembered as those kids with songs about rape, anal sex, standard juvenile mischief and boorish violence. That doesn’t seem to be a reputation that bothers them, either.
Funny Or Die! has posted a NSFW comedy video of the group, which gives some handle to this ride. Check that out, plus other music sideshows from the group, below.
The possibility (and probability) that Odd Future has been approached by squares at the majors is itself a satire — of the beige-suited has-beens in A&R trying to convince them to make songs “less rapey” paints a sad picture of very real extremes. And, indeed, in this very galaxy, it’s happening, like when Interscope struck that hot iron as everybody still thought Die Antwoord was a joke.
This is the part when Odd Future goes from full-frontal subversion to crackpot water cooler chat. The group made for quite a performance on “Jimmy Fallon” last month. They’re on slate to perform at the mtvU Woodie Awards this spring. They’ve arrived on Funny Or f***ing Die.
[More after the jump…]
And the allure? They started with gathering a little love from hip-hop critics, Questlove or Mos Def or whoever, leaving us all wondering who’s in charge of kingmaking little sh*ts. Theirs is a hot breath of pre-sexual frustration and viciousness: like Dennis Hopper in “Blue Velvet,” staring and screaming wide-eyed at a woman’s vagina and still not knowing what to do with it (but able, grandly, to murder men). Odd Future is caught in the poop cycle of Freudian psychology, on loop like an internet meme.
And it’s catchy like a meme, too, with big dumb hooks and malleable verses but the same core of cursing and Tyler the Creator’s clever spit, which bears influence less from broad-based hitmakers and more from the funny backpackers and lyricists who now hold them high. Yet, they borrow cues of violence (particularly toward women) and identity-altering from Eminem to Slim Thug to Rick Ross. And after society has condoned violence in hip-hop for so many years, who cares if Tyler raps whatever pops in his head, even if it comes out as bloody as a red Rorschach?
What do you think? Is Odd Future a mass murderer or an experimental pre-pubescent? Who is its audience? Is it you?