Odd Future

[justindburton]

This probably would've been timelier a couple of months ago, but Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (mostly just Odd Future, for short, or OFWGKTA) have been fascinating me all spring semester and continue to this summer. They're a collective of LA hip hop artists who specialize in offending and grossing out whomever is listening. Earl Sweathshirt's first video, simply called "Earl," epitomizes the group - there's lots of cursing, several sexist and homophobic slurs bounced around, and a good deal of blood and puke (maybe I should've put the link on the other side of that description, huh?).

Tyler, the Creator - the de facto leader of the group who likes to sport True Blood Season 2-era black contacts - has his most recent video plastered to the front page of OFWGKTA's website, and it features stalking and male violence against women. The music in these two songs is similar in mood - there's a synthy horror vibe wobbling above a distorted bass - but Tyler and Earl offer up different variations on the theme. Even in Tyler's earlier video, Yonkers, which includes a vomiting section and ultimately ends with the disturbing image of his suicide, my impression is that his brand of shock is a bit more adult than Earl's; Tyler has the capacity for real terror, where Earl seems to be working through adolescence in the most profane manner possible. This may have little more to do with the timbre of their voices. Tyler's is a deep groan that sounds like it hurts his throat, while Earl's is higher-pitched and more melodic.

There are others: Hodgy Beats, Frank Ocean, Domo Genius, among others. But Tyler and Earl are the faces of the outfit, the former by choice and the latter by circumstance. While Tyler organizes everyone and was the first to release a full-length album that people were expected to actually pay for (until a month ago, the website offered nearly a dozen mixtapes from the group's various members), Earl has achieved notoriety by disappearing just as OFWGKTA went from underground sensation to national curiosity. Kalefa Sanneh ran down Earl's whereabouts, as well as his origins and possible inspirations, in a recent New Yorker article (you have to be a subscriber to access it, but it was an engrossing read and worth the $5 for me), the gist of which is that his mother suggested that he's too young for stardom, and he seems to have agreed to leave the country until he's ready for the attention the group is getting (some of this was previously reported by Luis Paez-Pumar for the Village Voice).

Coverage of the group inevitably turns into the question of whether there's something of value in OFWGKTA's music or whether they're mere shock artists who will do anything for attention (the implied logical conclusion being that we should deny them our attention, I think). Cord Jefferson wrote about OFWGKTA for The Root a couple of months ago, and his critique is most provocative. There's an observation - Odd Future pulls in more white listeners than black - and an explanation:

it's not in spite of this darkness that these white people like Tyler and his crew; it's because of it. It's because they're intrigued by this seething rage that, as Baron writes from his point of privilege, they don't normally get to see. It's grotesque, but more than that, it's exciting.

At a recent show at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, Odd Future played for about 15 minutes before Tyler, angry at the lackadaisical, giggling crowd, swore at some of the audience, derided the soundman and stormed away, his group in tow. "Ain't s--- funny," said a member of the band before leaving the stage.

The mostly white audience's response to the actual black frustration before them? They laughed it off. So much so that Phoenix New Times music writer Martin Cizmar called the experience a "turnoff." "[I was] unsettled by how the mostly white crowd related to Odd Future's angry music," Cizmar wrote in his review of the show. "Something about wealthy white yuppies laughing and smiling as black teenagers pour out their rage at an unfair world through hip-hop didn't sit well with me … [T]here's something unseemly about white people getting a big kick out of it."

The French call it nostalgie de la boue, or "yearning for the mud." It's a great phrase for describing what these white writers mean when they say they like the way Odd Future's music makes them "feel weird and awful."

I'm assuming several of us in this forum have listened to or at least been made aware of Odd Future before now, so I wonder what others are thinking. Do you listen? Do you enjoy? Do you think Jefferson's argument is tenable?

[Barry Shank]

There is a lot to say about Odd Future and about the multiple contexts that surround the production and the reception of their music and multiple personae.  So much to say that I doubt that much of value could be crammed into a forum post. 

But I would like to ask a follow up question--is it fair to say that OFWGKTA is the first indie hip hop collective?  (Where indie is meant to conjure not a mode of production but the values-world of indie rock)  If not, who would be important precursors?

Thanks,
Barry

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[Dave McLaughlin]

The Rhymesayers label may function like an indie hip hop collective of
sorts. I checked for hip hop collectives in Minnesota since the Twin
Cities have a big hip hop scene. I found this, though it's the first
I'm hearing of it: http://www.doomtree.net/about/

Dave

[justindburton]

I think Barry's right - Odd Future strike me as an endless cipher that can be easily plugged in to practically very conversation the general public has had about hip hop (the New Yorker essay even ties Earl to hip hop's primordial goo): starting and ending with violence but hitting expression, identity, racism, and audience expectations, among other things, in between.

As for indie ideas, I also though of doomtree, who I've heard a little of but not a lot (one of my students last year tried to convince me that Dessa was the best female rapper going, and I'm not sure I was ever convinced; but this was the same guy who also hooked me up with my first taste of Earl, so it might just be me).

I also thought of the recent infatuation with hipster styles (I think of indie and hipster as being close together on a continuum), most obvious in the sporting of skinny jeans by guys
like Pharrell, Chris Brown, and Lil Wayne.

But I'm kind of wondering whether indie and hip hop have ever been too far apart. There's a common DIY element to both scenes, and while artists from both genres have certainly capitalized, there's also a strong current of independence and personal confession running through both (or at least posturing of the same).

Here's my real confession, though: I'm maybe not confident that I really know what "indie" means, and I'm afraid I'm conflating it with several otter things (punk, emo, grunge, and hipster, to name a few), which makes all of the above a little fuzzier than I'd like it to be.

Could we talk about what "indie" means and why OFWGKTA and Doom Tree might be indie but Wu-Tang might not be?

[John Gratton]

As Barry pointed out, some of the confusion surrounding the word "indie" comes from deciding whether it is describing how music is produced and distributed v. the actual sonic quality of the music. Take for example the band Phoenix, who most would say is an indie rock band, however, they have lost the whole DIY element and underground appeal.

I personally believe OFWGKTA is considered "indie" because they are making a move that is in contrast to what is considered "mainstream" (another arbitrary term). Although Odd Future enjoy a great deal of mainstream success, they acheived that success with music that is dramatically different then the "cookie cutter" music heard on the radio.

Your associations with the word "indie" are also interesting to me because it almost reads like a timeline. The role "indie" music plays in our society today is the same role "emo" music played in the early 2000's, and grunge played in the 90's. If Wu-Tang isn't considered "indie" hip-hop collective, it might just be due to the fact that the word "indie" wasn't as widely used in the early 90's.

In a strictly musical sense, "indie" hip-hop is really hard to pin down. Although indie rock has a relatively uniform sound, hip-hop doesn't work in the same way. If OFWGKTA is the standard for indie hip-hop, where does that leave groups like Das Rasict and The Weeknd who have the underground and DIY elements, but musically sound totally different; and lyrically make everything a joke, rather than serious and violent. And on the flipside, what is to be said about Tyler songs like "She", and pretty much Frank Oceans whole album, which fit nicely with current mainstream hip-hop?

"Indie" may now be to broad a word to gain any real insight from, and in
relation to Barry's question, I feel Wu-Tang is a real important precursor to what Odd Future is doing, regardless of what is considered "indie".

[justindburton]

Quick note - the student I mentioned who turned me on to Doom Tree and Earl is John Gratton. No need for anonymity when he's right here in the forum.

[justindburton]

The idea, then, might be that "indie" is a catch-all that defines "against mainstream?"

Is there a certain nerdishness present in the idea of "indie?" If so, that might explain why I think Wu-Tang are an indie collective, with their fascination with comic books and fantasy. This could also create some interesting cases when combined with the "against mainstream" idea: Pharrell and N.E.R.D. are notorious Trekkies, but they're also about as mainstream as it gets. 

[Eric Harvey]

Hi all, first post here just to add to this discussion with a bit of
self-plugging: my review of Tyler, The Creator's *Goblin* for the
Village Voice: http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-05-11/music/tyler-the-creator-s-boy-s-club/
I tie Tyler back to 1993 and Tupac/Charles Barkley's "role model"
conversation that attended hip-hop and black popular culture storming
the mainstream, and make a reference to what I really think is driving
this group--the ever-resurgent phenomenon of "boy culture." Pardon the
NSFW language of course.

I'm not sure how relevant "indie" is to the Odd Future conversation
aside from a superficial/fashion gloss, though. But perhaps this comes
from my own feeling that, apart from the DIY bluebloods, indie has
merged with hipness and commercial culture to a degree that the two
discourses are more or less inseparable at this point. And Odd Future,
as fashion-forward as they are, certainly exemplify this trend.

On Jun 8, 4:26 pm, justindburton <justindbur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This probably would've been timelier a couple of months ago, but Odd Future
> Wolf Gang Kill Them All (mostly just Odd Future, for short, or OFWGKTA) have
> been fascinating me all spring semester and continue to this summer. They're
> a collective of LA hip hop artists who specialize in offending and grossing

> out whomever is listening. Earl Sweathshirt's first video<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78_loMbmKJ8>,

> simply called "Earl," epitomizes the group - there's lots of cursing,
> several sexist and homophobic slurs bounced around, and a good deal of blood
> and puke (maybe I should've put the link on the other side of that
> description, huh?).
>

> Tyler, the Creator - the de facto leader of the group who likes to sport *True
> Blood *Season 2-era black contacts - has his most recent video plastered to
> the front page of OFWGKTA's website <http://www.oddfuture.com/en/>, and it

> features stalking and male violence against women. The music in these two
> songs is similar in mood - there's a synthy horror vibe wobbling above a
> distorted bass - but Tyler and Earl offer up different variations on the

> theme. Even in Tyler's earlier video, Yonkers<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSbZidsgMfw>,

> which includes a vomiting section and ultimately ends with the disturbing
> image of his suicide, my impression is that his brand of shock is a bit more
> adult than Earl's; Tyler has the capacity for real terror, where Earl seems
> to be working through adolescence in the most profane manner possible. This
> may have little more to do with the timbre of their voices. Tyler's is a
> deep groan that sounds like it hurts his throat, while Earl's is
> higher-pitched and more melodic.
>
> There are others: Hodgy Beats, Frank Ocean, Domo Genius, among others. But
> Tyler and Earl are the faces of the outfit, the former by choice and the
> latter by circumstance. While Tyler organizes everyone and was the first to
> release a full-length album that people were expected to actually pay for
> (until a month ago, the website offered nearly a dozen mixtapes from the
> group's various members), Earl has achieved notoriety by disappearing just
> as OFWGKTA went from underground sensation to national curiosity. Kalefa
> Sanneh ran down Earl's whereabouts, as well as his origins and possible

> inspirations, in a recent *New Yorker* article<http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_sanneh>(you have to be a subscriber to access it, but it was an engrossing read and

> worth the $5 for me), the gist of which is that his mother suggested that
> he's too young for stardom, and he seems to have agreed to leave the country
> until he's ready for the attention the group is getting (some of this was

> previously reported by Luis Paez-Pumar for the* Village Voice*<http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2011/04/earl_sweatshirt.php>
> ).
>
> Coverage<http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/02/24/132283971/why-you-shoul...>of thegroup<http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/what-is/who-is-odd-future-525...>inevitablyturns<http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/may/08/odd-future-tyler-creator-...>into thequestion<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-new-wu-tang-clan-odd-futur...>of whether there's something of value in OFWGKTA's music or whether they're

> mere shock artists who will do anything for attention (the implied logical
> conclusion being that we should deny them our attention, I think). Cord

> Jefferson wrote about OFWGKTA for *The Root*<http://www.theroot.com/views/odd-future-s-odd-fan-base>a couple of months ago, and his critique is most provocative. There's an

> observation - Odd Future pulls in more white listeners than black - and an
> explanation:
>

> it's not *in spite* of this darkness that these white people like Tyler and
> his crew; it's *because* of it. It's because they're intrigued by this

> seething rage that, as Baron writes from his point of privilege, they don't
> normally get to see. It's grotesque, but more than that, it's exciting.
>
> At a recent show at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas,
> Odd Future played for about 15 minutes before Tyler, angry at the
> lackadaisical, giggling crowd, swore at some of the audience, derided the
> soundman and stormed away, his group in tow. "Ain't s--- funny," said a
> member of the band before leaving the stage.
>
> The mostly white audience's response to the actual black frustration before
> them? They laughed it off. So much so that Phoenix New Times music writer
> Martin Cizmar called the experience a "turnoff." "[I was] unsettled by how
> the mostly white crowd related to Odd Future's angry music," Cizmar wrote in

> his review<http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/uponsun/2011/03/odd_future_at_billbo...>of the show. "Something about wealthy white yuppies laughing and smiling as

> black teenagers pour out their rage at an unfair world through hip-hop
> didn't sit well with me … [T]here's something unseemly about white people
> getting a big kick out of it."
>

> The French call it *nostalgie de la boue*, or "yearning for the mud." It's a

[Nick]

On Jun 20, 5:22 pm, Eric Harvey <marathonpa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm not sure how relevant "indie" is to the Odd Future conversation
> aside from a superficial/fashion gloss, though. But perhaps this comes
> from my own feeling that, apart from the DIY bluebloods, indie has
> merged with hipness and commercial culture to a degree that the two
> discourses are more or less inseparable at this point. And Odd Future,
> as fashion-forward as they are, certainly exemplify this trend.

I'm with Eric and yet, I can't help but take Barry's bait, and would
quickly and briefly offer the early-nineties Bay-area Solesides
conglomeration as an earlier "indie hip hop collective" in the terms
Barry invokes.

I too find OFWGKTA compelling in ways I can't fully articulate, and
I'm grateful for the thread/thoughts. Thanks Eric, et. al!

Cheers all,
Nick

[justindburton]

Eric, you hit on several ideas I really like in this piece. One thing that frustrates me when I listen to Tyler is that he shows flashes of a brilliant, mature style, but he also shows that he hasn't learned how to control that style yet, so we get equivocations, ham-fisted apologies or aggressions, and material that should've been left in the incubator a little longer or else cut altogether.

This isn't unexpected - he's a kid, so maturity comes in fits and bursts. As a listener, though, I sometimes find it difficult to be patient to wait for him to come into his style, and there's always the worry that he'll never meet his potential. Maybe he's a Darko, not a Dwyane.

And the parenthetical in the final paragraph may really be what makes me squirm about OFWGKTA. The content of his lyrics isn't what ultimately troubles me. Rather, it's the use of a specifically male privilege that its employers do not seem to understand is a privilege. It's the invisible misogyny that's always more discomfortin than the obvious ones...

[Karl Hagstrom Miller]

Eric's "fuck that, you know?" perfectly sums up my reaction to Odd Future.  From my perspective, the sexism is the definition of uncomplicated, un-performative, and unabashed.  Until we can accept Skrewdriver's (far less graphic) racist lyrics as complicated utterances ready for analysis and interpretation, I think we must dismiss whoever sings "Bitch Suck Dick" as beyond the pale.  In light of the current assault on women's reproductive rights, I hear "Bitch Suck Dick" as more politically powerful than anything Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, or Helen Reddy ever penned.  It is the soundtrack to Gov. Brownback.  Don't believe the hype.  

[justindburton]

Karl's remarks put me in an intellectual bind, and it's one I've been trying to figure out for some time. Namely, I can't fully explain why I excuse some provocateurs but not others, though I think I'm coming closer to understanding.

I have a few ideas about interpretation and artistic license that I often pull out when I want to defend someone like Tyler, but, as Karl mentions, I (and probably most of us) don't apply these defenses to everyone. Odd Future? Yes. Skrewdriver? Not really. Louis CK? Definitely. Tracy Morgan? Sort of. Don Imus? Nope.

It's not that I couldn't pull together a basic defense of Skrewdriver or Don Imus on the same grounds as Odd Future and Louis CK; it's that I don't want to. Why not? I think there might be two reasons, but I'm still not completely sure.

1. I'm more likely to defend artists whose profanity (not just words but content and ideas) is overwhelming, not measured or isolated. That explains Imus to a degree, but I'm not sure how consistently I apply this "rule." Skrewdriver and Tracy Morgan are overwhelmingly profane, but I'm not terribly moved to explain, excuse, or defend them.

2. I'm more likely to defend an artist's profanity if I'm engrossed by his/her technique. I think this is probably the most fundamental explanation for my responses to profanity, and it touches on the discussion thread about Guy Ramsey's blog. What I often do is couch my explanation of someone like Tyler in scholarly terms, but what I'm really doing is responding to a subjective musical preference. I think Tyler is a clever writer and talented producer, so it's worth my time to excuse/explain/defend his content. (Incidentally, I'm much quicker to defend Earl than Tyler, and, not surprisingly, I find Earl to be the more talented rapper). Same with CK. Because I think he can craft and deliver jokes brilliantly, I'm eager to view his content through a forgiving hermeneutic lens that I don't bother to employ with other comics.

This intersection of fandom and academia can be an uncomfortable place, and between Ramsey and the most recent JPMS, it looks like a trending topic in pop music studies.

[Karl Hagstrom Miller]

Hey all,

Justin, I appreciate your point.  I share your dual approach, though I was never able to articulate it as well as you did.  The overwhelming profanity can be part of the bit. Cool. I got no problem with profanity.  Fuck the American Enterprise Institute.  And I also tend to be really into technique--its the reason I listened to no one but Eddie Van Halen for all those years.  I agree that Odd future sports mad technique.  

But I find that I constantly have to balance my excitement about technique with my understanding of power culled from my life as a scholar and a human being.  Gotta learn how to love Zappa and condemn "Bobby Brown Goes Down" (among many others).  Its not just about profanity for me, but about the power relations that profanity (or squeaky clean lyrics, for that matter) represents.  

The thing that makes me feel kind of dirty about the Odd Future buzz is the way that the acceptance/rejection of racial and gender violence are so at odds within the discussions I've seen.  I fear that white guy music fans (like me) are more willing to talk about violence against women than racial violence as complex, interesting, and artistic.  There is a long history of white and black men coming together over the objectification of women.  Odd Future, to me, seems to fit right in.  The politics overwhelm my appreciation of the technique.

[Justin Burton]

"The thing that makes me feel kind of dirty about the Odd Future buzz is the way that the acceptance/rejection of racial and gender violence are so at odds within the discussions I've seen."

Agreed. This is the part I have trouble working through, too. I should've been clearer, but I meant "profane" as a catch-all that goes well beyond cursing to include homophobia, misogyny, racism, and the like.