The Future’s Bright, the Future’s….Odd?

Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All have very little tolerance for rules. Breaking laws – whether actual or perceived – is just part of what they do. From their ungainly moniker to their entirely self-funded and promoted output to their unflinching lyrical content, OFWGKTA, or simply Odd Future, don’t set much store by what has been done before. In a year where they have gone from absolute unknowns to the brink of superstardom, it would seem that their policy of rebellion has worked. And then some.

Little more than a year ago, Odd Future were a bunch of skate punks cruising their hometown LA streets and making music in their spare time. Now, they’ve performed at South by Southwest, the MTV Woodie Awards and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, not to mention a burgeoning diary of small-venue gigs across Europe and the States which included an outdoor set at the Camden Crawl. Suffice to say their popularity is exploding.

Yet most people are still wondering who on earth this crew are, and how they’ve come so far so fast. Producer, rapper and de facto leader Tyler, The Creator is the mainstay, having been involved – as rapper, producer or in many cases both – in nearly every OFWGKTA release, and often speaks on behalf of Odd Future as a whole in interviews. His debut album Bastard received much acclaim for its brutally unrestrained lyrics, and recent single ‘Yonkers’ has found huge viral success, its disturbing video – in which Tyler eats a live cockroach and then hangs himself – clocking up millions of hits on YouTube and heralded by Kanye West as the best music video of 2011. Much of the furore about Odd Future’s depraved content has been directed toward Tyler’s work: his gravelly flow and darker-than-coal subject matter combining to make for memorable, and sometimes plain disturbing, listening.

While Tyler has been receiving by far the most ink, there’s much more to OFWGKTA than just one man. Earl Sweatshirt, Hodgy Beats (both solo and with Left Brain as MellowHype), Mike G and Domo Genesis have all released their own rap albums, but there’s also electronic funk courtesy of The Jet Age of Tomorrow and smooth RnB from Frank Ocean. In a manner befitting the group’s egalitarian approach, every OF release features a host of crossover collaborations, with guest verses from various members of the collective and guest production from Tyler and the group’s two more specialist producers, Syd and Left Brain.

But if OFWGKTA’s music is innovative, the way they distribute it is even more creative. The Odd Future Tumblr blog is the only centralised location where all of the collective’s output can be found, whether you want to download Mike G’s Ali, Jet Age’s Voyager or the group’s Radical mixtape. All of it is free. And not free in the way that Radiohead’s In Rainbows was, where downloaders were encouraged to pay whatever they felt appropriate for the album, but absolutely no-strings-attached gratis. Odd Future do not ask you to donate to their cause, but allow you to pay nothing to to listen their music without even a hint of complaint. Tyler’s upcoming sophomore album Goblin is going to be the first release which is “bigger than our Tumblr” (as the group themselves put it). What that means, as ever with Odd Future, isn’t exactly clear. As Hodgy Beats raps on MellowHype’s ‘Based’: “You can hate it, love it, or like it / Either AIM it, Facebook it or Skype it”.

OFWGTA’s use of technology is progressive, all-inclusive and joyously obvious, and means that they create hype on their own terms. Tellingly, OF has a serious vendetta against perceived ‘hype-maker’ hip-hop blog sites 2DopeBoyz and Nah Right – Tyler mercilessly ripping into them at the start of Bastard – both of whom refused to put Tyler’s work up on their sites when he first submitted them. Tyler and his group have their own hype now, and continue to slam these two sites, even advertising on them both enclosing a message telling them to, well, fuck themselves. The message Tyler’s sending is one of perseverance: keep making music when you’re doubted, and always get the last laugh.

It would be easy to dismiss OF with the argument that “people only like because it’s free”, but to do so would entirely miss the point. Odd Future don’t so much face down convention as gleefully pistol-whip it to death, and this ethos extends way beyond the free distribution of their output.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlGWRPnp0ok

The controversy regarding their music – most of which swirls around Tyler and Earl – is easy to comprehend, but it too overlooks the meaning behind the menace.

Take ‘Sarah’, perhaps the most controversial track on Tyler’s first album. It weaves a twisted tale from a first-person perspective, as Tyler’s fucked-up rap persona does the following: asks a girl to the prom, gets rejected, kidnaps her, locks her in his basement, repeatedly rapes her, cuts her up and then kills himself when the cops show. The first reaction to this is probably universal: “This guy is a psycho”.

Yet while the lyrics are depraved (to say the least) they’re making bold statements, revealing the darkest inner workings of the human soul and peeling back the curtain on the final taboos of the 21st Century. OF don’t believe in taboos and have no time for compromise or restraint: their lyrics are brutal, even malignant, and relentless. The visceral impact of Tyler’s Bastard or Earl’s self-titled is unparalleled, the sheer fury and force behind every word tangible and meaningful.

Bastard also contextualises its content. The entire record is played out against clips of a lengthy “therapy session” between Tyler’s persona and his doctor, and the final line of the title track reveals that at least part of the reason for Tyler’s violence are memories of an absent father: “I just want my father’s e-mail / So I can tell him how much I fucking hate him in detail”.

Tyler’s gleefully profane style is actually reminiscent of another much publicised rap success story: Eminem. Both handle tough subject matter, play out protracted fantasies of murder and suicide, and have a bruising flow which refuses to let up. They both express their anger through alter-egos – Marshall Mathers/Eminem and Tyler/alt-Tyler – and act as symbols for a disenfranchised, forgotten, furious generation.

For all the furore surrounding Tyler’s content, Eminem’s ‘Stan’ – which was a UK number 1, lest we forget – contains some horrifying images. The closing verses wherein Stan kills himself and his pregnant girlfriend are shocking, but reveal the instability and senseless rage that destroys lives, much as Tyler’s raps unveil the true horror of rape and murder, not to mention the twisted psychology of those who perpetrate such acts.

Whether or not Tyler and Odd Future will ever reach the heights, both critical and fiscal, that Marshall Mathers has done is uncertain, but regardless of the success they go on to attain, their music’s impact cannot be denied. From the free distribution of their tracks, to the kinetic, frantic, stage-diving, mosh-pitting live shows which frequently resemble a cross between a rap concert and a heavy metal show, OFWGKTA are pushing rap in a new direction. Their use of the world’s most powerful promotional tool, the internet, is second to none, and their abilities on the mic or behind the desk are precocious and hugely impressive.

Ready (or more likely) not, Odd Future are coming. And we’d best be prepared.