“Tell Satan that I want my f—in’ swag back.”
This is music guaranteed to make you flinch. A group of unruly, obscene and extremely talented rappers that go by the exhausting name Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, have completely turned the hip-hop world on its head.
They’ve released a flurry of albums in the last year-and-a-half with another that dropped Tuesday from producer and rapper Tyler, The Creator.
There are 11 members total, but three groups within in the collective: MellowHype, The Jet Age of Tomorrow and EarlWolf.
The most shocking thing about them is their offensive and odd lyrics that are flavored with topics on rape, cannibalism, suicide, murder and atheism. Their ages range from 17 to 23 and they’re starting their own record label, because no other labels, including Roc-a-fella and Bad Boy Records, will suffice.
They claim to not want to be considered a part of the L.A. music scene, even though that’s where they’re from. Tyler stated in several interviews and on his Twitter account (@f-cktyler) that he didn’t want people comparing them to other hip-hop groups.
Although they may deny it over and over, they are the NWA of our generation; they are the Wu Tang Clan for the unsettled youth that’s looking for something to piss their parents off.
The collective’s youngest member, Earl Sweatshirt, recorded his debut mix tape, entitled “Earl” when he was 16.
“Sent to earth to poke Catholics in the ass with saws and knock blunt ashes into their caskets and laugh it off,” he raps on the self-titled track.
Not only are the lyrics horrifically spellbinding, but the beats are also original and cooked up inside Tyler’s mad mind. He boasts about creating the music for a majority of the group’s albums and mix tapes and he should. Every beat is haunting and sticks with you, even if the actual lyrics don’t.
OFWGKTA’s live performances at Coachella, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” and the MTVu Woodie Awards shows that they may not fit in with mainstream music very well, especially when their lyrics are bleeped out more than your average rapper. The audience may have no idea what to expect because what it all boils down to is, they’re a bunch of kids doing this partially as a joke.
The two outstanding and most talked about artists in OFWGKTA are Tyler and Earl, but the other members are creeping their way into the spotlight. With Hodgy Beats’ electrifying rhymes and Domo Genesis’ stoner anthems, the group is on its way to carving a deep wound in the body of hip-hop.
The biggest controversy surrounding the group is not their gruesome lyrics, but the unsolved mystery of Earl’s current whereabouts. He disappeared sometime in 2010, with Complex Magazine claiming to have found him in a military school in Samoa, where his mother sent him.
None of the members of OFWGKTA would comment on this and Tyler went on a rant on his Twitter saying, “I Just Came On This To Say That Complex Sh-t Is False Info. Sucks Waking Up To Some Sh-t Like That.”
No one is sure if Complex Magazine’s findings or Tyler’s rants are true, but it’s certainly enough to keep the underground hip-hop community buzzing.
