ODD FUTURE WOLF GANG KILL THEM ALL

xxp yeah, but there's no actual criteria for determining whether OF do this any more or less than, say, big l other than subjective opinion. cos clearly plenty of people do find the 'context' of odd future's gay slurs (i.e. the rapping and production, you know, the music) compelling enough to find them worthwhile as musicians. i'm sure if you spend a ton of time listening to a billion blog rappers you can spot all the individual things they do that make them unique and talented all over the place in other tracks here and there, but i hadn't heard anything at all that instantly clicked with me like odd future in the same way until i heard them. and a large part of that was the production too, which i think has been overlooked as a reason why people might initially be drawn to them rather than other rappers who theoretically do the things they do better.

like, it seems to me that deej was able to identify however much w/ big l's upbringing/life whatever and he was able to understand and accept that context and how it informs big l and his music. meanwhile, ppl like me and noz and whiney and whoever else immediately see the context in tyler's offensiveness because it something that we experienced when we were growing up and it's easy for us to say "yeah i knew tons of kids like this i understand exactly what they're doing and why they're doing it and where this comes from". i think this was clear early on deej when you were talking about odd future being influenced by 4chan or /b/ and some of us were like "no really this is just how skater kids in high school are". and just how you read odd future as "context-less rape jokes", there are TONS of people (probably not in this thread) like for instance robert christgau (and if i'm imagining an xgau CG review of big l than apply what i'm saying to dr. dre) that listen to big l and go "this guy is just an ignorant asshole that takes pride in beating up women and gays."

i r with k3v/deej. even tho i agree w/ j0rdan/noz in that there's something more to it both artistically & ito personality,likeability, than immature jokes i can understand someone not seeing it or thinking it a thin cover for repulsive content

aerosmith there was very little action on any rap threads while deej & whiney were banned & altho i find u an exceedingly pleasant & hilarious poster u are insufferable & relentless in deej pile-ons. i don't like it when this happens either but i think u exacerbate it w/ your posts. pretending that rap threads were some cornucopia of thoughtful & erudite discussion & not a wasteland of shakey mo posts & disparate youtubes won't make it so

ha j0rdan i think my life was prob way closer to of's than big l's

idk you knew tech n9ne fans irl

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/90/l_b4df2228c32fbb3d84a3c5658ad8da00.jpg

Though my life does not mirror Tyler's or his crew on all fronts, I too have had the experience of not fulfilling the social roles that are expected of young, black males. Though I do not share Tyler's prejudice and/or need to shock, I do know how it feels being frustrated with people who I thought were idiot authority figures ruining my life.

I should have emphasized more on why I find his music intriguing in later posts besides pointing out the negative parts which may have exacerbated the conversation to a train wreck. It was coming from a feeling of frustration of being around a community that is disenfranchised and uses "boogie men" as their attempt to feel in control (those "boogie men" being gays, other non-white races, etc.) I gues instead of always criticizing rappers like Tyler we should be asking why would they want to rap about things like rape and homophobia. That usually entails criticizing hetereosexual male privelege which does not get discuss enough in hip hop.

And when I say discussed I mean discussed in an offline setting rather than the internet.

you guys

http://twitter.com/#!/normmacdonald/status/44835912940662784

i stopped reading like 90 posts ago, but isn't the swastika thing a 4chan schtick
i think these guys are just internet kids, shockers sorry if i BLEW YOUR MIND

4chan invented kids being obsessed with swastikas

Guys I think the nudity on the sandwitches single is a 4chan thing because sometimes I see nudity there

you brought it to the internet via 4chan, thats it.

― i been serving humble pie since he had small faces (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, March 14, 2011 5:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i'm making the same point there, frobgs

sorry, sarcasm vertigo

just posting to say that I'm w/ deej on this one

deej, that must be very comforting

you like bad rap

oh heavens!!

I'm with everyone? I think y'all are unfairly piling on deej a bit. He's fairly clearly saying that FOR HIM there's not enough context provided within the music itself to offset some of the stuff that he finds particularly unsavoury. It's not that poverty or 'a rough life' are necessary, just that in order for him to buy into an act that's deliberately and frequently offensive, there needs to be something else that draws him in.

Personally, I'm down with OFWGKTA because I think rape and fags aside, they're doing things musically that I find particularly engaging. But he's not saying that Tyler hasn't "earned the right" to make rape jokes. He's saying that there's not enough in Odd Future that he LOVES to get PAST the rape jokes.

And yeah, j0rdan, your comment about feminist or any other -ist reading of music being stupid in mind-bogglingly misplaced. I'm not saying that music like this automatically is forever beyond the pale and must not be listened to (clearly, since I listen to it!). But all of our discussions about music exist in the midst of social context. Like, yes, 4chan, teenagers, "in my world of 00s teenagers" people make rape jokes. BUT...discounting the impact of those by saying "we don't really take it too seriously" ignores how that subconsciously shifts discourse/how we think about rape etc. etc. etc. (Hell, look at that ridiculous NYTimes story this week about the gang rape in Texas. Rape is not taken seriously by society, yes, and maybe that is a PROBLEM in and of itself.)

Again, I agree that it's nothing novel to Odd Future, and I don't object per se to music saying "faggot" (trying to count how many times a week I refer to myself as a fag. answer? lots.), and I think there's enough other stuff here worth coming back to, but it's straight-up idiotic to pretend that stuff like this has no possible impact beyond 'it's just music/they don't MEAN it.' Engaging with these guys critically, especially as a fan, and especially as a guy requires dealing with how shit like this trivializes something that is a serious problem.

Don't get me wrong, I love Earl and Bastard but if I ever get to the point where I *don't* cringe at the last verse of 'epaR', I'll be worried.

most of the problems i've had w/ feminist music crit is that the most circulated/talked about stuff is done by, for lack of a better term, outsiders (this applies to taylor swift as well as rap) -- there's loads of female music critics that i'd love to see critique music from a feminist angle, but they usually stick to talking straight music crit (j shep is one exception and i value her opinion highly)

but it's straight-up idiotic to pretend that stuff like this has no possible impact beyond 'it's just music/they don't MEAN it.' Engaging with these guys critically, especially as a fan, and especially as a guy requires dealing with how shit like this trivializes something that is a serious problem.

^^^OTFM!!!!!!!!!!

alex in montreal otm

i do think that certain things like the relative acceptability of fagbashing v racism in music (i mean obv there's plenty of racism in modern music but at least in the mainstream its not really possible to present it in the same "i hate x" way i think) and how idk this kindof does seem p connected w/ systems of privelige like the ones deej is getting slammed for invoking.

i mean i know he claims hes not and yr strawmanning him there are circles and circles

lol privelige

re: 4chan connections — sometimes i like to pretend that when lil b uses the word "goon" he's talking about being a member of the somethingawful forums. would be funny if it were true.

idk i figured the casual nihilism of *teen years* is basically why ppl like this band, empathy or nostalgia. like i guess the ways in which they are repellent little douchebags strikes a chord w/ me and figured this would be the general mode of reception or w/e

― plax (ico), Monday, March 14, 2011 7:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

rofl http://oddfuture.tumblr.com/post/3901033718/nah-right

caring whether those sites post their music (even in a defiant "we don't care" way) kinda makes these dudes chumps imo

Just a bit of a laugh innit?

caring whether those sites post their music (even in a defiant "we don't care" way) kinda makes these dudes chumps imo

― some dude, Wednesday, March 16, 2011 3:04 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

it's pretty hilarious -- also honestly after hearing assholes like joe budden & sean price & lupe or whoever the fuck actually rapping about nah right, hearing an aspiring rapper say "FUCK NAH RIGHT" is pretty awesome imo, even if it is low hanging fruit

like when gucci said "we don't bump the blueprint 3"

yeah i totally get that -- but at the same time it's like ooh big man, why don't you bite the Gorilla Vs. Bear hand that actually feeds you (not that the indie media they're darlings of wouldn't generally be amused or even thrilled to be the subject of one of those disses)

plus "we're finally featured on those sites because someone paid them" is kind of a hollow victory

well i think it's less "we're finally featured on those sites because someone paid them" and more of a general prank of sorts

notice that none of the ads mentioned odd future at all & even if you clicked on the ad you had to sit thru like 10 seconds of nonsense song before it revealed itself

yeah i can see how in that sense it's sort of a rickroll. i'm just saying my first instinct would to look at it like "wow that artist hates that site but nobody at their label bothered to think of maybe not throwing a chunk of the advertising budget for their album toward that site, dumbasses" rather than "wow that site hates that artist but they took their label's money anyway"

You are suggesting that a traditional banner campaign on, say Gorilla Vs. Bear (where I imagine most of the audience is already aware of and formed an opinion on Odd Future) would be a better use of that ad budget?

the odd future wolf gang kill them all advertising budget

my point wasn't that their money is better spent elsewhere to maximize the impact of their advertising, just that they're giving money to people they hate and spinning it like they're the winners, which struck me as odd

it's probably marginal ad money if fuckin adidas is taking over eskay's site

yeah i'm sure the actual amount is negligible, i'm just thinking of all the different ways they could've pulled a 'gotcha' on NR now that they've gotten this big without their support, and this is very low on the list

i mean it's hardly the first time NR has shitted on or ignored an artist but taken their label's $ and run their ugly banner ad, and when that has happened it's felt more like NR being subversive/mischievous than the artist

my point wasn't that their money is better spent elsewhere to maximize the impact of their advertising, just that they're giving money to people they hate and spinning it like they're the winners, which struck me as odd

― some dude, Wednesday, March 16, 2011 2:59 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

http://img.listal.com/image/1375748/500full.jpg

lol

haha

I'm no media buy expert but from what I understand these campaigns just get blasted out into preconfigured networks of blogs and websites, if XXL bought into a uground rap network and 2db sources ads from that network neither side has a lot of control over the process unless somebody objects and it sounds like neither side would at this point, one side's lolling and the other's cashing a check

everybody wins!

oh yeah, i agree and totally get that. just saying usually in this kind of situation i'd imagine one side is lolling AND cashing a check and the other's doing neither.

i mean this ties into what i was saying way upthread about how their crazy rebellious teenager image kind of gives them an easy pass to do or say whatever and no matter what the joke is presumed to be on somebody else, just in this case i don't really get how that works