Or, it’s for the other side of these individuals, for the flip within us all, features reversed and letters running backwards. Perhaps it’s meant to simply suggest that he makes this music for himself and his friends, which is how Odd Future (and any band of musical brothers) started. He states that this is music for the man in the mirror, rather than the masses, and one can read that two ways. But Tyler is playing a dangerous game now that millions have joined his inner circle – curbing the language, but more importantly dulling the thematic knife-edge upon which these songs balance, will set him in good stead to follow his idols into mass markets. They’re kids being kids, shooting shit and boasting about conquests that probably never happened, using language which can be incredibly offensive. Obviously Tyler and his cohorts aren’t rapists. Disclaimers are dispatched, but almost as afterthoughts, pre-empting the inevitable furore and fighting back with blunted blades produced from grotty back pockets. So, long story short: Tyler writes about things that other rappers might shy away from he outlines them as fantasies, and states that everyone has dark thoughts from time to time but he never convincingly qualifies his talk of rape and turns of homophobic phrase. Odd Future’s lyrical content has been the subject of immense scrutiny, and writers elsewhere have already explored the themes of Goblin in great detail. He could be the equal of them, that’s clear from just a cursory listen to Goblin right now, though, he’s walking a very fine line between genius and the grotesque. At only 20 years old, Tyler’s breakthrough arrives before he’s had time to properly mature as a producer – he hasn’t the behind-the-scenes experience of a Kayne or a Pharrell, and now the spotlight is blinding enough to possibly tempt him to stray from a comparable trajectory. Stray from Odd Future’s sample-strewn Radical mixtape, missing-in-action rapper Earl Sweatshirt’s own solo effort and the aforementioned Bastard and the listener is swiftly adrift in a sea of mundane raps about questionable subject matters. While Tyler’s catalogue of work is sizeable, his quality control is inconsistent, productions past ranging from the inspired to the utterly insipid. That, more than any amount of blog buzz or magazine covers, is truly evidence that Odd Future’s leader has landed in the mainstream.Īnd arguably he’s done so ahead of his time. What is radical, after so many free-to-download releases from Tyler and his Odd Future (Wolf Gang Kill Them All) rap collective, is that this is marketed as an album ‘proper’ – one can step into their local high-street music store (assuming it hasn’t closed) and pick this up alongside two-for-one 30 Rock sets and second-hand Xbox games. Goblin isn’t a radical departure from any hip hop preceding its release – one can hear echoes of myriad artists/producers past and present in its DNA (Mobb Deep, Wu-Tang, The Neptunes, Nas, Eminem, Dre) – just as it’s not a significant step onwards from Tyler ‘the Creator’ Okonma’s solo debut, 2009’s ‘net-distributed Bastard. “ I’m fucking radical… I’m muthafucking radical.”ĭepends on your definition of the word, really.
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