What happened at the Odd Future show in Detroit
Waiting in line for the Odd Future show in Detroit was one of the most fun experiences I’ve had in a while. Watching the Odd Future show in Detroit end early because people threw glass bottles onstage was not really fun at all.
Until Syd came out to DJ, people were friendly and enthusiastic, shouting out their favorite Lil B, Waka Flocka, and Odd Future lyrics, being negative about Steve Harvey, and cooking up a storm in dance form. Shouts about the security guard being a faggot quickly turned into shouts about it not being a homophobic thing. In other words, there was a pretty devoted #based, positive, and enthusiastic fan base who embody all the good things that current young hip-hop has to offer.
The problem, though, and this is something that I’ve been worried about since all the uproar about Odd Future started, was that there seemed to be a lot of people who, not to be harsh, didn’t really get Odd Future, that it’s about young people acting silly. People who were a little too enthusiastic about the violent lyrics or who were there because they wanted to be in on the cool thing, or, worst of all, some combination of the two. In other words, while there were college kids cooking with us and skinny high schoolers hopping up on stage, there were also 25-year-old hipsters trying to crowd surf and way too much pushing. And, of course, three glass bottles got thrown on stage, eventually forcing Syd to leave (why a music venue this size sells glass bottles is beyond me, but also, just saying, the only people who could buy glass bottles were people over 21).
Until that, the show was cool, despite bad sound and Tyler apparently sitting out several songs because his voice was struggling. “Sandwitches” and “Yonkers” were some of the hypest things I’ve ever witnessed, and watching Tyler crowd surf was joyful and amazing. The excitement and charisma onstage provided a pretty immediate dismissal to any concern about the lyrics, but watching some idiot with a mustache kick kids five years younger than him raised some immediate concerns. Syd, Tyler, Hodgy, Left Brain, Mike G, Domo, and Frank Ocean were in control, as were the kids smiling at the edge of the stage, but a few disruptive people out in the crowd (the disruptive ones I saw were almost all older, white, and male) lacked the innocent enthusiasm and seemed more intent on actually hurting someone. Some of this might have been contagious; I felt like punching some of the more provocative people around me, and the show ended with Hodgy trying to punch a kid who kept coming up on stage. But I think part of it is that Odd Future’s fans have trouble realizing where the fiction ends or where the acting up stops being “swag” and starts being malevolent. To Odd Future’s credit, Tyler tried to keep the show going even after Syd decided to leave the stage, but things pretty much ended after the glass bottle throwing.
I have been and continue to be a big fan of Odd Future, and I think that they are signalling an important new positive movement in hip-hop that is breaking down a lot of barriers. I think that there is a set of fans who get that (a set that intersects neatly with Lil B’s fan base), but the problem is that not all the people who listen to Odd Future get it. Tonight’s show in Detroit confirmed all my stereotypes about Detroit, of course (did I mention the huge abandoned building behind the liquor store across the street from the venue?), but it also confirmed a lot of my fears about the problem with Odd Future getting so big so quickly — problems of misinterpretation and of trying to embrace something “cool” without really understanding what is cool about it. There’s probably no escaping this phenomenon, at least not until the next “cool” thing comes along, and it’s frustrating to see an effort to connect with a group people don’t really understand turning into the force that drives them off stage just because the lyrics are violent or the attitude is punk. It’s probably appropriate in some ways that an Odd Future show in Detroit ended because it got too aggressive, but it’s also unfortunate that it couldn’t end with just everybody having fun — because, when it comes down to it, the spirit of fun is what makes Odd Future so exciting.
