Off-Topic

What does the Screened community think of Tyler, the Creator and friends, also known as Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, or more commonly Odd Future? I like Tyler's album Goblin a lot, as well as a few songs by other members of Odd Future. I enjoy a lot of the videos they make, both humorous and serious (I also find it impressive that Tyler himself directed Yonkers). I can understand why people wouldn't like Odd Future, considering that rape and murder are constant presences in most of the lyrics, but I think there's something more there, and there is a method to the madness. I'm not a die hard Odd future fan, and I actually dislike a lot of the fans of Odd Future (mostly the ones who just think its cool that they swear a lot and talk about violence and rape), but I somehow find myself a fan. It's certainly not music for everyone, but what do you guys on screened think of Odd Future in general?

I thought Goblin was slightly disappointing given the immense amount of hype surrounding it at the time, but I liked his first album, Bastard, a lot. I still think Frank Ocean is a better artist overall. His mixtape, Nostalgia, ULTRA is my favourite thing to come out of Odd Future, and his collaborations on Watch the Throne were made up my favourite tracks on the whole album (No Church in the Wild, Made in America). I'm looking forward to Tyler's next album, Wolf, though. Apparently he's going for a different sound. The themes of the music don't really phase me that much.

I've listened to both of Tyler's albums and EARL. They've done so much stuff, and so far I've loved all of it, but I need recommendations on where to go next? Anyway, I love Tyler's style and lyrics, and Earl does some great experimental stuff. I'd love to see these guys live. My favorite thing about these guys is how raw and passionate their stuff is. They're young, they have energy, guts, and hate Bruno Mars. They are all right in my book.

The Radicals mixtape is probably the best thing OF has done. "Swag Me Out" is a work of art that rivals the greatness of "BSD"

Frank Ocean is very good and I like him. Earl is pretty good as well, and MellowHype is alright. Don't much care for the rest of Odd Future.

never got into it. earl is a very good and original rapper but the style is just so lame and awful for me. also hate how they got insane hype in early 2011, and after goblin everyone moves on (at least on the internet).

Odd Future are an interesting lot. While I definitely like the stuff that they've done as far as bringing something new to an increasingly stale mainstream, it's hard to look past that they're kind've incredible assholes.

I don't know if any of you dudes know who Steve Albini is. I'm not going to assume, but I am going to post something he wrote not too long ago about an experience he had with the band. It's late, and I wanted to throw in, but I remembered that Steve puts it pretty well when he says that good people make ugly music and ugly people make good music. Keep in mind that Steve wrote this on the forum for his recording studio in a thread where he threw in a short, concise opinion on these guys and was asked for the full story. I know this has made it onto other music news sites, but that wasn't the original intent.

"My band shared an airport shuttle with them in Barcelona. They piled onto the shuttle late, after finally getting corralled by their minder, who was nursing a head wound with an ice bag wrapped in a towel. They piled in, niggering everything in sight, motherfucking the driver, boasting into the air unbidden about getting their dicks sucked and calling everyone in the area a faggot. Then one of them lit a joint (or a pipe, I didn't look) and told the driver to shut the fuck up nigger and smoked it anyway. A female passenger tried to engage one of them in conversation, but he just stared at her with a dead-to-me stare while his seatmate flipped double birds in her face.

The whole trip they complained about not being at a McDonalds and repeatedly shouted for the motherfucker to pull over so they could get some fucking McDonalds nigger. Interspersed with the McDonalds requests were shouted boasts about how often they masturbated and fucked bitches nigger and got paid like a motherfucker fifty grand like a motherfucker. They continued complaining that the trip was taking too long and insisted they be fed immediately all the way to the airport, where their minder presumably fed them.

I am quite happy none of them engaged me directly, because at least one of us would have regretted it.

I am well aware, thanks, that good people can make ugly art and that ugly people can make good art. Ultimately the function of art is to express something and move an idea from one person to another, and the tools of that can include revulsion and discomfort. Having been in a few bands myself, thanks, I know that the uninitiated can mistake these devices as windows into the soul of the creator. Ultimately they are, of course, but not necessarily in the crude autobiographical way they are often interpreted.

I know all that, so I am never quick to judge a person based on a superficial reading of creative output. Peter Sotos is a lovely fellow whom I trust implicitly, despite his writing evoking a truly primal disgust in me, to use another rapey example. Michael Gerald from Killdozer said it best in an interview, when the journalist remarked that he seemed like a nice fellow, which was unexpected given that the characters in his songs are often repellent. "Oh, that's not us," he said, "that's the crazy people we sing about." In that light, I am one hundred percent behind Odd Future's right to rap about what they wanna rap about, and if she don't like it fuck her.

And also fuck me. It's none of my business what they wanna. I'm not part of the audience for hip hop, and as a non-dilettante I don't generally respond to it when I hear it, so I can't make any critical assessment of Odd Future's music on its own terms, but they go out of their way to make it clear that this is not a case of regular people making music about assholes, but assholes making music about being assholes. I have no time for that. I don't respond kindly to it when Ted Nugent does it either.

If the whole thing is a put-on, a bit of Vincent Gallo life-as-theater for the benefit of whoever happens to be sitting next to them, that's no excuse. It's being an asshole about being an asshole." - Steve Albini

Golf Wang

(I legitimately like Tyler & OFWGKTA. They're making rap like no one else is currently. IMO, they're the most interesting players in the game right now. Hate them or love them, you've gotta admit that they're original.)

I like EARL and quite a bit of bastard, but Goblin is mostly fucking awful. Also their shameless Wu-tang/wolf gang thing is pretty crazy, especially considering wu-tang did everything they are doing better some time ago.

Saw them at a festival last summer, where they were shut down for stage diving. Tyler had a cast on his foot, because he had broken it a week earlier. I count it as one of my favorite moments of the year. Bastard is a work of art.

@VinceNotVance: eminem?

Yeah, what OF does isn't necessarily original, but how they've done it is what makes it exciting. They're some of the first kids in their genre to do everything themselves every step of the way and get something out of it in return, from creating and manning their own website to the production and distribution end of their music to their music videos. Otherwise what they do isn't necessarily new. Part of what makes their sound unique though is their presentation. Who sounds like these kids as rappers? People like Earl because the dude sounds so unlike other rappers, as well as Tyler. Their rapping isn't necessarily clever and it certainly isn't shocking either. As far as shock goes, horrorcore happened in the 90's.

Eh, I don't want to make any critical statements about them because they are about the farthest thing from the type of hip hop I listen to, but I can say they aren't pleasant to my ears.

Are they considered mainstream now or are they still in that weird bubble that Arcade Fire was trapped in when they won album of the year? I want to know what Dog the Bounty Hunter would say if Tyler won album of the year...hee hee.

I liked it for a while and I still think that Yonkers and Sandwitches, for example, are really great songs. Goblin though was a pretty big disappointment and I haven't listened to anything they have put out since. It kind of feels like they already had their time in the spotlight and people have moved on to other rappers like ASAP Rocky and Danny Brown.

GOLF WANG! SWAG! SWAG!

Gotta love Whitney Hou- I mean Tyler in this!

On a serious note, I think Odd Future is overrated. The only people with any potential are Tyler and Earl They would all benefit by polishing their material a lot more before they release it. Keep your message, wild out and rap macabre with little substance. Do you, just give it more when you do it. Most of their beats are garbage and the lyrics leave a lot of room for improvement. Make everything at the standard they did "Yonkers" and they'll be okay.

"EARL" was the best release they had in my opinion. Not a classic but it was a decent release (it's on my computer) for what it was worth. If Earl comes back to OF and they really spend time on the album I'll check it out. Sure it's a still a bunch of horror core but if it's done well it'll be worth a listen. Doubt it happens though.

Tyler has no passion for the art (I can't speak for the rest of OF). He says he raps for attention, money, etc and his new album will be more focused on production instead of rapping. Tyler has a unique voice, flow, charisma and he's funny as hell but like I said he doesn't care enough to develop his potential. He'll just continue to be the wild child of hip-hop.

The biggest problem with OF has nothing to do with OF. I think the fans vilify Odd Future through their ridiculous adoration for the group. You will not make any new fans if your current fans go around dissing legends. They are probably the worst fan base I've ever seen. They make you want to dislike OF. Tyler and Earl are the only two passable rappers in the group, stop acting like they're Doomtree or something. Oh and to those who think these guys are unique. Shock rap happened a decade ago. Kool Keith, Gravediggaz, Ghetto Boyz, Necro, etc.

I think some of them are immensely talented and have great creative potential, but from interviews I've read and seen they also at least "seem" like horrible people. How some of you can get over that and enjoy the music is beyond me. I don't wanna put hate in my ears. Why is baseless anger and violence so pervasive in popular Hip Hop? Oh well, back to De La Soul.

@JayDee: 2 months late, but yeah, Eminem is Eminem, he's one of the best rappers of all time, but he's been doing his thing for 15 years now. There's no one like him & there won't be anyone else like him, but we've known his shtick for years now, so it's not as "surprising" (probably wrong choice of words) when he drops something new. He's doing him, but we're used to that now. Back when Shady & Mathers LP dropped, that's when you were blown away. I can't say that Odd Future is making masterpieces like Eminem did, but there's something there that reminds me of how Eminem changed the game back then.

@gangly: I think Odd Future is just full of trolls, not necessarily bad people. Tyler's, what, 20 now? We were all dicks (or are going to be dicks) at that age. Sometimes you gotta separate the art from the person. I like Kanye West's music, but I think he's an awful, ungodly human being. Rosemary's Baby is a fantastic film, but that doesn't change the fact that Roman Polanski is a pedophile who fled the United States so that he wouldn't be convicted of his crime, and so on.

There's plenty of hip-hop out there that isn't full of hate or misogyny. You just gotta look harder, because the mainstream stuff isn't going to get you what you need.

@gangly: I feel you. Hip Hop is my favorite genre, but I just can't stand the subject matter of the mainstream stuff. DRUGS! VIOLENCE! PARTYYYYYY! BITCHES!

I guess I'm just a pussy. I like my hippity hop to be positive.

I kind of take Tegan and Sara's side on the whole Tyler The Creator debate.