Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Music news What Odd Future's 'Loiter Squad' has in common with gangsta rap's most-loved villain
Posted by Josh Z Pate on Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 4:50 PM
Atlanta's Adult Swim recently released the trailer for the new Odd Future TV show “Loiter Squad”.
Dickhouse, the production team behind "Jackass," brings us this 15 minute live-action show featuring sketches, man-on-the-street segments, pranks, and music from the LA-based rap collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, set to air March 25 with a promotional March tour to several cities including the A.
Interestingly enough, the show airs the same date that Odd Future plans to stop by the Tabernacle, marking OF's second Atlanta date since appearing at Center Stage last October. The concert will include a pre-screening of the show along with the typical hyped up, break your ankle, crowd-surfing performance from OF.
Shooting videos has been a part of the OFWGKTA shtick for a good minute, but an official television spot is a new milestone. Every so often a simple homemade video finds its way onto OF’s Tumblr page and racks up hundreds of thousands of hits. Tyler the Creator has even appeared on Adult Swim before in a cameo on the "Regular Show" alongside Childish Gambino. OF crew members have some experience with acting, too, appearing in a Funny or Die sketch.
We can speculate on whether or not this show will exponentially increase OF’s popularity, but that’s really not the point. After all, OFWGKTA’s bread and butter comes from Internet heads, but there's a takeaway here.
Odd Future isn’t a group of guys that want to “wear nice suits and make good decisions.” They exist as a model for bad behavior. A model that has taken a new platform in syndicated television. This is nothing new, though. Yesterday’s punk is today’s Odd Future, just as the old "Jackass" is the new "Loiter Squad."
But just because it has been done before, doesn't mean it can't be fresh. Odd Future brings some things to the table that "Jackass" and other shows didn't have: like a cult-like following and a belief system.
Odd Future has taken on the role as the anathema of society; they’ve already been cited as misogynistic, homophobic, heretical, profane, and filthy, attracting all the wrong kind of critical attention while capitalizing on it commercially. Behind the cameras and microphones though, these guys aren't a group of bandits. Just misfits.
The Odd Future ethos is an egotistical one. "Do what the fuck you want to do" becomes the maxim to live by in the OF universe. But is that really that bad? Is solipsism a bad thing when it encourages you to be what you want to be, or even more importantly, to be the person that you are.
When hip-hop's villain of choice, Tony Montana, said, “You need people like me, so you can point your fucking fingers and say, ‘That’s the bad guy,’” he was right. Who knows whether the show will reflect in any way the lyrical content and dissolution in the music, but the fact that they're following in the footsteps of "Jackass" producer Jeff Tremaine will only make these guys more hated by their critics — and loved by their fans.
Hopefully there’s room in there for a curious bystander or two like me.
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OF IN THIS BITCH BUT BLUNT FANG IS HITTIN' ERRRYONE W/ 400!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEKkW0LjjDY
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