OFWGKTA ... even I can't make up my mind on this one.

OFWGKTA ... even I can't make up my mind on this one.



Gotta admit, I'm having a harder time wrapping (rapping?) my head around the whole OFWGKTA a.k.a. the Odd Future collective thing the more I think about it. While I could initially write them off as super inventive kids playing with the tropes, particularly roleplay, hip-hop (and really all music, but it seems to be more exaggerated in hip-hop) affords its practitioners. But then I have to ask; what point are they trying to make? What is the point of shocking for shock's sake, and what will they think of their own lyrics ten years down the line? Punk rock is about exploding and challenging social conventions but I'm not sure how exactly their songs are doing that.

I think we've passed the point* where people will just talk about how awesome OFWGKTA is without beginning to seriously question the lyrical content, no matter how terrific (and it is terrific) the music they're constructing is. Is it just a self-aware satire B.E.E. style? I don't think so. I think it's more a "we throw this shit around without really understanding because we're too young to care about anything other than shock." I mean, seriously, they're a bunch of super-talented artsy skatepunks who obviously don't mean what they're saying but I don't think they really understand what they're saying.

You know?

The one thing I know for sure is that ten years from now, Tyler will be pulling the same thing the Beastie Boys did down the line and grow deeply embarrassed with how little thought he put into his earliest work lyrically, and how that effects it when compared to his presumably large canon to come.

*OK, I don't think we've passed the point, I know we've passed the point, and I think you can thank DeRo for that. Now he's emboldened others who have probably kept their doubts silent in the face of the critical lurve dousing OFWGKTA to speak up.

Photo of OFWGKTA from their Facebook