Hip-hop collective Odd Future (OFWGKTA) continues to push buttons in the music industry. From the moment of their arrival on the scene, they shocked audiences with their disturbing lyrics and outrageous antics, garnering them a violent and wild reputation. Recently, musician and journalist Steve Albini took the time to comment on his own experiences with young rap group.
Albini, who’s band shared a bus with Odd Future in Barcelona, was struck—as many seem to be—by the group’s careless and disrespectful attitude, saying on a blog “I spent about 40 minutes with these little pricks at the end of May and I haven’t wanted to strangle anybody that much in a real long time.” Albini continued by describing in detail the short bus ride, ripe with shouting, expletives, and inappropriate hand gestures.
He finished by reminding readers that while he recognized the disconnect between musicians and their subject matter—citing his own band experience as a basis—his snap judgment of Odd Future was not based on their music. Albini concluded with the following:
I’m not part of the audience for hip hop, and as a non-dilettante I don’t generally respond to it when I hear it, so I can’t make any critical assessment of Odd Future’s music on its own terms, but they go out of their way to make it clear that this is not a case of regular people making music about assholes, but assholes making music about being assholes. I have no time for that. I don’t respond kindly to it when Ted Nugent does it either.