This was supposed to be Odd Future’s present
By: Austin Isaacsohn
Tags: Music, Features, Rap, Odd Future

Jesus called, he said he’s sick of the disses I told him to quit bitching and this isn’t a fucking hotline

Tyler, The Creator, “Yonkers”

The teenage rap crew probably took off in the video where their leader eats a cockroach:

For in that instant, Tyler, the Creator — the face of the most disruptive West Coast rap co-operative since NWA — had arrived. The music video for his song “Yonkers” was released in conjunction with the 19-year-old’s full album Goblin in 2011, and what a fitting wide entrance it was for the baby-faced degenerate. Tyler was an absolute wrecking ball, newly ascent but somehow already fully developed. He was young, but powerful, and oozing the sort of charisma associated only with open, honest teenage fatalism.

The name of his group was long, but seemed at least direct:

Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All

Tyler’s description was a bit more enlightening:

I’m an overachiever, so how about I start a team of leaders And pick up Stevie Wonder to be the wide receiver Green paper, gold teeth and pregnant golden retrievers Is all I want, fuck money, diamonds and bitches, don’t need them

Tyler, The Creator, “Yonkers”

I was in high school when it dropped, and I can’t lie: this video changed the way my friends and I listened to hip-hop. We watched “Yonkers” on repeat for weeks, eager to have sound that was new and daring — distinctly ours. Listening to rap had always felt like the joy of older generations. My big brother got to fall in love with an up-and-coming Kanye West, but even he was too young to fully appreciate Jay-Z’s debut in the 1990s.

While Tyler and his Wolf Gang never coalesced their transcendent talent to reach the towering heights of those legends as a unified group, the co-operative of teenagers and 20-somethings from Los Angeles constructed a music genre, lifestyle, and celebrity unlike anything that ever bubbled up before or after them. They were around for only a blink, a meteoric second in the sun, but OFWGKTA inspired the sound of their generation. Of my generation.

I’m a hot and bothered astronaut Crashing while jacking off To buffering vids of Asher Roth Eatin’ applesauce Sent to Earth to poke Catholics in the ass with saws And knock blunt ashes into their caskets And laugh it off

Earl Sweatshirt, “EARL”

Their sound was singular. Odd Future pumped out music that was dark, but hilarious. They operated in slow, deliberate production, but dealt with unfamiliar issues in ways that made their music stand out like a sore thumb or a black sheep against their more reserved contemporaries — and it was fantastic.

OF peddled their desire to “kill them all” as frequently as they did their downright ordinary upbringing; their satanic body modification as splendidly as their LA boutique fashion. They weren’t gangster rap, grunge or punk rock, but embodied and emboldened the spirit of all three in themselves and their audience: kids of all races and genders who didn’t have much trouble to get into, but could certainly make it for themselves.

They weren’t comforting, or necessarily comfortable, and were proud of it. They were kids on top of the world, but still kids, complaining about how little power they had or how little their moms understood them. Odd Future sought out to ruffle feathers, but always counterbalanced with messages that were meaningful. It made their jokes funnier, and their negligent on-screen antics scarier. And that molasses flow ensured you heard every word.

In my favorite music video the troupe ever produced, for a song called “EARL,” they blend up all the drugs that they can possibly get under one roof into a disgusting slurry. They drink it, go outside to skate, throw up, bleed out of their nipples, and die.

Though my friends and I had never gone to such gruesome ends, the video reminded me of many Saturdays past.

Look at the star power in this picture:

That’s Tyler, Earl Sweatshirt, and Frank Ocean. It’s from this video:

This is “Oldie,” off of the group’s second and final studio album, The OF Tape Vol. 2 from 2012. It’s a 10-minute tour-de-force that highlights every aspect of the Odd Future genius, and everything that made the group a freight train.

At their best, OF was shades of a western Wu-Tang Clan: phenomenally skilled burnouts happy to trade long and soaring verses over beats they made in their garage. Like Wu-Tang, Odd Future championed the spoken verse over any other component of a rap song, usually going without a catchy hook or intricate audio effects. And “Oldie” saw them reach their pinnacle, at their most ruthlessly efficient.

The commitment to a slower style was unusual, but highlighted the often-times precarious harmony between the members’ personal preferences, and allowed each artist to individually interact with the sound and survey their own take on its best utilization.

And boy, did they have the talent to carry it through: between 2008’s Odd Future Tape and 2012’s The OF Tape Vol. 2, Tyler, Hodgy Beats, Left Brain and Syd Tha Kyd had added the likes of Domo Genesis, Earl Sweatshirt, Frank Ocean, Mac Miller and Vince Staples to their regular working repertoire. Odd Future got its own show on Adult Swim, performed on Jimmy Fallon, put out a clothing line (ever seen someone wearing a fitted hawaiian shirt and a five-panel cap?), and completed international tours. Nearly all of them were still under 22.

It was becoming Odd Future’s world.

Rent a supercar for a day

Drive around with your friends, smoke a gram of that haze

Bro, easy on the ounce, that’s a lot for a day

But just enough for a week, my nigga what can I say

I’m hi and I’m bye, wait I mean I’m straight

I’mma give you this wine, the runner just brought the grapes

My brother give it some time, Morris, and Day

Course you know the vibe’s as fly as the rhymes

On the song, cut and you could sample the feel

Headphone bleed, make this shit sound real

Used to work the grill, fatburger and fries

Then I made a mil and them psychics was liars

Now, how many fuckin’ crystal balls can I buy and own

Humble old me had to flex for the fogs

Down in Muscle Beach pumpin’ iron and bone

Bumpin’ oldies off my cellular phone

Frank Ocean, “Oldie”

Feral, fuckin’ ill apparel, wearin’ pack of parasites

Threw his own youth off the roof after paradise

La di da di, back in here to fuck the party up

Raidin’ fridges, tippin’ over vases with a tommy gun

Never dollars, poppa make it rain hockey pucks

And 60 day chips from fuckin’ awesome anonymous

Call him bloated ’til he show ’em that the flow deluxe

Off the wall loafers, Four Loko, and a cobra clutch

Vocals bold and rough, evoke a ho to pose as drum

And let me hit and beat it with a stick until the hole was numb

The culprit of the potent punch

Scoldin’ hot as dunkin’ scrotum in a Folgers cup, or Nevada

Drivin’ drunk inside a stolen truck, shittin’ like his colon bust

Belly full of chicken and a fifth of old petroleum

Earl Sweatshirt, “Oldie”

Um, I was 15 when I first drew that donut

5 years later, for our label yea we own it

I started an empire, I ain’t even old enough

To drink a fuckin’ beer, I’m tipsy off this soda pop

This is for the niggas in the suburbs

And the white kids with nigga friends who say the n-word

And the ones that got called weird, fag, bitch, nerd

Cause you was into jazz, kitty cats, and Steven Spielberg

They say we ain’t actin’ right

Always try to turn our fuckin’ color into black and white

But they’ll never change ’em, never understand ‘em

Radical’s my anthem, turn my fuckin’ amps up

So instead of critiquing and bitching, being mad as fuck

Just admit, not only are we talented, we’re rad as fuck

Bitches

Tyler, the Creator, “Oldie”

But the group struggled mightily to maintain, and by 2015, they were done. Side projects had been a defining tenant of Odd Future’s construction; to allow members to work together on smaller endeavors that were only loosely tied to the greater whole. But thoughts of extended individuation quickly became actions, which quickly became norms. Earl Sweatshirt released his critically-acclaimed debut Doris in 2013, only a year after Frank Ocean’s debut channel ORANGE earned a Grammy nomination. Syd forged an entirely new group called The Internet, and began putting out some of the most inventive new music in the industry.

Rumors swirled on blog sites of internal conflict within the co-op, centered around the enigmatic leader, and then swirled on-stage at an actual Odd Future festival. There were no serious “beefs,” but with only two albums to their name, the burgeoning Wolf Gang dynasty was gone as quickly as it appeared. I was broken up — this crew was supposed to change music. Plus I already bought a bunch of hawaiian shirts.

But I think they still did.

Too many bottles of this wine we can’t pronounce Too many bowls of that green, no Lucky Charms The maids come around too much Parents ain’t around enough Too many joy rides in daddy’s Jaguar Too many white lies and white lines Super rich kids with nothing but loose ends Super rich kids with nothing but fake friends

Frank Ocean, “Super Rich Kids”

OF was unable to grow as a group. Members progressed at different speeds, and in different directions, and without the strong professional foundation that was originally part of the Odd Future charm, fallout seemed ominously inevitable. Their sound began edging toward stale, and that was the final death knell.

Age and inexperience of the members and the imperfect construction of musical strengths on Odd Future doomed what had the raw power to become the biggest name in rap, but the tenets that made the crew so remarkable have lived on — the aspects of their music that gave it such profound power, and made it so socially perverse, are still very much alive.

There are now 50-odd spin-off and side-spin-off projects from the original Odd Future label, and while each collection varies drastically from nearly every other compositionally, the individual sentiments aren’t too far off from the gaudy verses on “Oldie.” The conversations are different, but only slightly — messages of hedonism in the face of teenage confusion have turned to those of resilience toward racial and social identity failures in adulthood.

Too black for the white kids, and too white for the black From honor roll to cracking locks up off them bicycle racks I’m indecisive, I’m scatterbrained, and I’m frightened, it’s evident In them eyes, where he hiding all them icicles at?

Earl Sweatshirt, “Chum”

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck If a woodchuck could ever give a fuck?

Tyler, the Creator, “Tamale”

Hear your heart go As you’re coming down Where’d your heart go It’s all in your heart It’s all in your heart Look no further Let your heart flow

The Internet, “Roll (Burbank Funk)”

Odd Future’s long-term incompatibility had nothing to do with lack of talent — in fact, had the members been less profoundly gifted, they’d probably still be together today. The group holds a deeper place in my heart then it will in history books, but not by much. OF forced rap to appreciate the weirdos, and unfortunately for fans, they’ll do a lot more good post-breakup than they did pre. They weren’t at all ready for the world they encountered, but neither was it for them. They’re all still rad as fuck.