Aug. 31, 2011 - Issue #828: Hollerado

Queermonton

Acceptance of bigotry

Celebrating bigotry in art is a questionable practice

I do my best to ignore the haters, unless they're powerful groups like lawmakers or organized bigots, so when Tyler the Creator won an MTV Music Video Award, voted on by viewers, I realized that his threat level had shot to the top of the ol' rainbow-threat-o-meter, because now the appeal of his hate-rap has spread beyond the realm of hipster music bloggers to the general public.
The horrifying content of Tyler and his group Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All’s music cannot be overstated. The song "Swag Me Out" has eight full verses of kidnapping, raping and murdering women, as well as a shout-out to two Nazi dykes shittin' in a synagogue  which is neither particularly witty nor profound. The song "She" details a date with a girl Tyler really likes, and all the violent things he will do to her if she doesn't have sex with him. So many of the songs involve killing women and gays that it's harder to find the ones that don't.
The music itself is nothing special. Their mix of hip hop and electro beats isn't new and nothing that artists like the Neptunes haven't done already. Reading what critics have to say about Odd Future is near heartbreaking. They've likened Odd Future to music game-changers like Public Enemy, 2 Live Crew and NWA. The argument is often that Tyler's lyrics are OK because he doesn't mean it, and that censoring them would limit their art. It's hard to know when gay bashing or raping sluts became art. Critics repeatedly refer to Tyler as a genius but there's little evidence in his attempts to defend himself, telling NME "I'm not homophobic. I just think 'faggot' hits and hurts people. It hits. And 'gay' just means you're stupid. I don't know, we don't think about it, we're just kids. We don't think about that shit. But I don't hate gay people. I don't want anyone to think I'm homophobic."
The group does count one woman as a member and she's openly gay. Syd Tha Kyd is their producer and has said about their content "Actions speak louder than words, and they treat me as an equal." However, Syd might fit right in, saying "When I first started really fucking with Odd Future heavy, my dad was like, 'Really? They talk about some crazy shit and as a female, you're slapping a lot of women in the face.' I'm like, 'That's what I do. I slap bitches.'"

It's interesting that they've seen a lot of press in predominately white-geared media but have continued to be ignored in mainstream hip hop. If one of the arguments is that this stuff is to be expected from rap, why aren’t they supported in their own genre? It just may be that real hip hop sees Odd Future for what it is: an incendiary group of angry children jabbing at society. Perhaps if we lived in a world without violence against women and homo/transphobia this sort of satire could be celebrated, but for now these kids are just repeating the language of bigots without understanding.
I'm not mad at the Odd Future gang. Disengaged kids with minor talents are likely to produce provocative material. It's the community at fault here: the critics, the voters, the bloggers and all the everyday people who are supposed to be better than this kind of bigotry. V

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