One of the biggest buzzes at this year’s SXSW music conference is an L.A. rap collective going by the name of Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (or Odd Future, for short). And if the members keep delivering performances like the one they churned out yesterday in the murky Texas heat, the career they have ahead of them will not only make for an odd future, but also a bright one.
“The buzz is beautiful,” says Hodgy Beats, who leads the lyrical charge of the Odd Future sub-group called MellowHype. “This is what we’ve always dreamed of doing, and we’re doing it. So I feel like a basketball player at the end of four quarters.”
Teamwork is one of the most contagious energies of the OFWGKTA collective. Even though this was technically a MellowHype show, all the members of the collective got up on the stage at one point or another.
“Everybody plays their position,” says Hodgy Beats. “It’s just like a basketball team, or a baseball team, as a matter of fact, because there’s so many of us.”
Lone Wolf
Odd Future not only has teamwork on their side. They also have original beats, racy rhymes and a healthy bit of their own mythology.
One member named Earl was reportedly forced to leave the group by his mother. She saw an Odd Future video for the song titled after his name, “Earl,” with heavy boasts of sex, drugs and murder, and cut off her son’s association immediately. MellowHype closed with “Earl” yesterday, and Hodgy Beats stormed off the stage while the bassy rhythm was still going. “I was just thinking about Earl,” he says after the show. “When I feel the energy from his f—ing songs I really feel connected because he was an Odd Future Wolf Gang member.”
Follow Pat Healy on Twitter at @metrousmusic.
