Yet in their ranks lurks one of the few out gay women in hip-hop, producer, DJ and singer Sydney "Syd Tha Kid" Bennett, whose father understandably advised her not to get involved with Odd Future, but who has, she says, recently discovered that being one of the few out gay women in hip-hop brings with it unexpected advantages: "On the last tour I got a knock at my door at 3am.
Some white girl with a half-drunk bottle of Bacardi," she laughs, wide-eyed with surprise. I'm not expecting anyone. They are an internationally famous band who, in the 12 months since Billboard magazine proclaimed them the future of the music business , have parlayed their notoriety into awards an MTV VMA for Most Promising Newcomer , a global chain of pop-up shops, a book and a TV series but not, as yet, into actually selling many records.
Goblin shifted 45, copies in the US in its first week. Not bad for alternative rap, but nothing to give hip-hop's major players sleepless nights. You could argue that this tells you more about the uncommerciality of their contents, from the stark, oppressive sound of Goblin to The Internet's fractured psychedelic soul. Or it might simply tell you that people who like Odd Future haven't yet come to terms with idea of paying for their music: before Goblin, Odd Future famously gave away more than 20 albums of material free via the internet.
Either way, expectations are high for their first commercially released group effort, The OF Tape Vol 2. In the moments when he's not loudly insisting that he doesn't give a fuck, you get the distinct impression its prospective reception is weighing rather heavily on Tyler's mind. I have my doubts. Everybody's going on it and I just think, fuck, everybody might hate this shit. Everybody might go: 'What the fuck is this?
We wanted this, we wanted that. We made an album we wanted to make. If everybody hates it, OK. We have an album we like.
To try to avoid that happening, the record label has bucked the straitened financial climate and flown me to LA for an interview as part of the forthcoming album's promotional campaign. The one big flaw in this plan is that — contradictory as ever — Odd Future won't let anyone hear a note of said album, and furthermore don't want to talk about it, except in the vaguest terms imaginable: an afternoon of probing reveals only that Hodgy Beats thinks it it's "awesome" and that track seven is Tyler's favourite.
The interview comes with other pre-conditions. I am advised by management not to ask anything about Thebe Kgositsile, better known as Earl Sweatshirt , who before his mother intervened and packed him off to the Coral Reef Academy, "a residential school helping troubled youth overcome emotional difficulties and substance abuse" in Samoa, was responsible for perhaps the most acclaimed album in the Odd Future discography, the startlingly intense Earl. He recently seems to have returned to LA and is back in contact with the others, but his story hangs over Odd Future: his disappearance was the subject of an 8,word essay in, of all places, the New Yorker.
Furthermore, as I arrive at the photo studio, I'm greeted by someone from Odd Future's team, who offers me advice on how to approach interviewing them, complete with vague but dire presentiments of what might happen if the members of the band the Guardian described as "the world's most notorious rap group" become bored by my line of questioning. It doesn't seem unkindly meant, but it all feels a little baffling after a couple of hours in their company.
Odd Future certainly offer a journalist what you might call the full panoply of hip-hop interview experiences. There is the earnest, level-headed entrepreneur: Syd Tha Kid, who moved from running her own flyer-distribution service to opening a studio in her parents' house — she met Odd Future when its members assembled on her lawn in a bid to get free studio time — and talks a little wistfully about leaving music behind entirely in order to get a masters' degree in business finance, then move into real estate or perhaps investment banking.
Equally, there is the rapper who's attached so much gold jewellery to his teeth as to render himself almost completely incomprehensible Mike G and the believer in the grand hip-hop tradition of turning up to interviews so stupefied by marijuana that the most straightforward inquiry appears to be an impossible conundrum. There is the wiry, intense Gerard "Hodgy Beats" Long, who discusses pulling himself out of a difficult childhood and turbulent adolescence: "At the end of the day," he says, "you gotta stop jacking off, you gotta stop fucking around, you gotta make your mind up.
I knew what I wanted to do, but I was just bullshitting, going through things that you have to do to mature" — from beneath a baseball cap emblazoned with the word NIGGER. And there is the rotund, amiable stoner Domonique "Domo Genesis" Cole , whose cheery attempt to explain the difference between a weed rapper a description he apparently balks at when applied to himself and someone who raps a lot about weed a label he's apparently happy with, which is perhaps just as well given the contents of his albums Rolling Papers and Under the Influence ends up confusing even him.
I'm not a weed rapper, you know what I'm saying? All my beats are smooth, everything is going to be smooth enough to get high to. But my last couple of songs I recorded for the album, I mentioned weed, like, once in every song.
He looks horrified. I'm gonna talk about weed. I'm not gonna change that for anybody. That's what I like to do. And if you want to know what I do, I'm gonna tell you what I do. Get high. Soon after he signed a record deal with XL Recordings. I just want to smile and live life. And anyone who speaks their mind is always criticised. I like making people happy. Learning to forgive ourselves and to be at peace with our everyday choices is genuinely gratifying.
Every moment in life, the good and the bad should be appreciated. Every moment lived is a lesson and a chance to create something new. We are not meant to be followers. There are enough followers in this world, being a leader is where the real challenge is. Dan Western is the founder of Wealthy Gorilla. Dan has been running Wealthy Gorilla and studying self-development, personal finance and investment for the last 7 years, whilst traveling the world and being able to call Bali, Indonesia, his HQ.
To this day, Wealthy Gorilla has become one of the fastest growing self-development sites in the world; with over million views worldwide, and more than , followers on social media. Dan's mission is simply, to inspire others to live their dreams and be the person to whom they say; "Because of you, I never gave up. Your email address will not be published.
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