Let me begin by saying that I honestly really wanted to like Odd Future. They seemed right up my alley, a couple of young, fresh faced kids from the hip-hop underground with a growing reputation ready to destroy preconceived notions about hip-hop. I was completely ready for a latter-day Wu Tang Clan with more smarts. Yet, while the critical apparatus seems ready to crown them the next big thing, I'm left not just wondering what the fuss is about, but honestly angry that I even gave them as much credit as I did.
Like a lot of people, I was first introduced to the hip-hop collective Odd Future (short for "Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All") a few months ago when the hype they had been generating for some time online reached critical mass and they began getting mainstream media attention. Specifically, I saw this performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon:
It's not difficult to see why I was drawn in by these guys. Tyler the Creator and Hodgy Beats are basically running a clinic on intensity here. Plus, from a strictly visual standpoint, they look like no one else in hip-hop. There are no designer clothes or pretentious sunglasses (yeah, I'm looking at you Kanye), no gold chains or diamond jewelry, none of the stereotypical bling of rap. Instead, you get what look like a couple of punk kids (and they are surprisingly young) scaring the daylights out of everybody in the studio. Needless to say, I was excited. I immediately found several of their mixtapes and began listening to them, excited to hear what I was sure would be some of the best hip-hop I'd listened to in a long time. I was instantly disappointed. What I heard was messy, poorly produced and completely lacking the intensity that had initially excited me about them in their live performances. What's more, the lyrics were completely unforgivable in every way imaginable. Not only were the lyrics shockingly misogynistic and homophobic, they weren't even well-written.
I'm embarrassed to admit that I wasn't ready to give up on Odd Future yet, I was still desperate to validate my initial excitement. I chalked up the lackluster recordings to a lack of careful production and decided I needed to give them a second chance. I also decided that I would reserve judgement until the release of the hotly anticipated album Goblin by Tyler the Creator (the de facto leader of the group) which I told myself would definitely be more on point and would live up to the promise of their live show. I was also convinced that I was just missing something, that obviously there was more going on here and I just wasn't listening carefully enough.
Well, after giving a thorough listen (following along with lyrics) to as much of Goblin as I could handle, I have the following to say about all of the press that Tyler and Odd Future have been getting: horseshit.
Honestly, never has an album made me as mad for as many reasons as this one has. To begin with, it's incredibly disappointing musically. Every bit of hype I had been reading about Odd Future praised Tyler as the true mind of the operation, a brilliant producer and a gifted lyricist. Well, I'm not buying any of it. First, in terms of depth and complexity his lyrics are a complete failure. Please, do not let anyone tell you that Tyler is a talented MC, he's just not. To pretend that he is destroys a music that I honestly believe can be incredibly powerful. If you want to hear a better hip-hop lyricist than Tyler the Creator, there are plenty of options I'd be happy to tell you about if you are interested in hearing about them. Secondly, in terms of production, I'm thoroughly convinced there is nothing special about what Tyler does on this album or any other I've heard from the Odd Future collective. I'll grant that his productions are something of a departure from most of hip-hop, and the horror movie ominousness is at least somewhat interesting on its surface. But that is basically the end of the story when it comes to the beats on Odd Future albums. To my ears, Tyler is a one-trick pony when it comes to his production skills. Everything is dark, ominous tones. All brooding and no direction.
But now it's time to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Because the most heinous aspect of Goblin or any of Odd Future's output is not the quality of the songs, it's the lyrical subject matter. Let me first say that I'm no friend of the PMRC and in no way am I advocating for censorship. It should also be noted that I have never bought the argument that violent lyrics cause people to commit violent crimes. So no, I am not afraid that teenagers will go out and try to imitate what they hear Tyler the Creator rap about in his songs, and I'll be the first to say that anybody who says otherwise is full of shit. Furthermore, I'm no prude, and I can more than handle any amount of profanity you could possibly throw at me and could probably dish it out better than most. So Odd Future's reputation for shocking and disturbing subject matter didn't scare me because I assumed that there would be a point to it all. But there isn't. And I can only put up with a rapper casually dropping the word "faggot" so many times before I begin to feel like it's only a cheap joke used simply for shock value. Worse, the almost incessant number of songs about rape and violence against women without any seeming moral commentary goes beyond what you could reasonably call story telling. Tyler and the gang don't even seem to have the decency to allow the opposite sex to be called "women," preferring instead to use any number of epithets, of which "bitch" is among the tamest.
I waffled quite a bit about whether I should even write this post, because a small part of me was afraid that I'd be accused of not seeing the bigger picture or over analyzing things. I've tried to look past my reservations and see some value in this music, but I'm convinced there isn't and I'd be lying to myself if I tried to pretend otherwise. What's more, I am disgusted by the seeming unwillingness on the part of music critics to actually be critical. It's downright unconscionable for the people at Pitchfork and elsewhere to act morally indifferent to Odd Future by writing about how the music is "controversial" or "divisive" instead of what it really is: misogynistic, hateful and downright pathological. Scant few people within the critical community it seems are willing to try and derail the hype machine surrounding this group. One notable exception has been a recent blog post by Sara of the band Tegan and Sara which criticizes the homophobia and misogyny of Tyler's music. The post is poignant and essential reading. Predictably, when Pitchfork linked to the blog post, they did perfunctorily and without any sense that perhaps it was time to step back and take note of what Sara was saying.
I chalk this lack of criticism among the music press up to cowardice. Perhaps the critics are afraid to get steamrolled by a seemingly overwhelming following that Odd Future has garnered in a short period of time. Maybe they think criticizing the lyrical content will make them look like prudes who can't take a joke. Whatever the reason, the complete unwillingness for the critical apparatus to hold Odd Future up to scrutiny is astounding coming from an industry whose entire purpose for existence is to provide subjective commentary about music. Any attempt at objectivity here is completely misguided and pointless. At some point, somebody has to have the intestinal fortitude to stand up and call these artists out. The fact that almost nobody in the power circles of music criticism is willing to do this is shameful. It's time for the critical community to acknowledge that at best this music is the product of a couple of immature dumbasses, and at worst it is the product of sociopaths with no regard for human decency.
I want to make one other thing absolutely clear about Odd Future. The notion that there is something deeper going on in this music than the surface level misogyny and homophobia, or that Tyler is making some kind of meta-criticism of society is a towering pile of bullshit. And the idea that these songs are not meant to be taken literally because they are simply a depiction of what is going on around us is a cop-out of the highest order. Those things could perhaps be said about some of the controversial artists in hip-hop history (NWA, Ice-T and Public Enemy being some of the prime examples) but at some point an artist has to show a glimmer of understanding what exactly they are doing with their lyrics. The best rappers (including some of those in "gangster rap") can do this quite well. Odd Future, however, have not proven themselves capable of this kind of deeper understanding. When they rap about rape and violence, they do so with absolutely no tact or purpose. They are shock for the sake of shock, with no real redeeming value.
I'm sure some people might say that I'm being overly harsh, or that I just don't understand. Perhaps, though I doubt I'm being harsh enough. And I'm also sure that my ranting and raving will do nothing to curb the hype surrounding Odd Future and would only cause derision and mockery from the members of the group if they were to read it. But, I'm not going to sit idly by and watch it all unfold without any commentary. I'll leave you with a little gem from Tyler the Creator's song "Yonkers" which pretty well sums up how he would feel about someone like myself:
They say success is the best revenge
So I beat DeShay up with the stack of magazines I'm in
Oh, not again! Another critic writing report
I'm stabbing any blogging faggot hipster with a Pitchfork
How lovely.
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