Introducing... Odd Future

By Greg Cochrane
Newsbeat music reporter Rap collective Odd Future are led by rapper Tyler the Creator

Such is the way the internet is now - we're thinking Twitter, uStream, YouTube here - you can pretty much live an event in real time without physically being there.

And so it was with this year's SXSW music and technology conference in Austin, Texas, in March.

We weren't there but we almost could have been such was the density of up to the millisecond online coverage of industry insiders mapping the vapours of buzz surrounding all the new artists.

You may have come across the music of 10-strong Los Angeles collective Odd Future (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All - to give them their full title).

Or, more likely, heard about the trail of destruction which followed them around Texas.

Punk meets rap

They played almost 10 gigs at the festival, most of which were screened or webcast in some form or other.

What we saw was a berserk devotion usually reserved for heavy metal gigs taking place as the gang of late teen/early twentysomethings with baggy skate shorts stage-dived, hung from speakers and generally caused a kerfuffle.

Their shows look like a mess. They're also one of the most exciting spectacles to come from any kind of band in lord knows how long.

They're led by Tyler the Creator, a loose cannonball of a rapper ready to shock.

In the recent video for his solo single Yonkers, from his debut album Goblin and now viewed more than five million times, he eats a cockroach and ends up hanging from the ceiling.

Collective

"Odd Future is a bunch of rapper, producers, filmers, photographers and skateboarders," he said simply, speaking to Radio 1's Jen Long recently.

"It feels cool. I didn't expect it to be as big as it is. It's still surreal to me. It hasn't really hit me."

On the opposite end of the spectrum of the group there's Frank Ocean, a soul singer-songwriter who, in the past, has written music for Justin Bieber and Beyonce. The yin to Tyler's harsh yang.

While the world is just waking up to them, they've already made more than nine albums available for free on their website.

With their move to the mainstream well on course it's seen them labelled everything from "bloody cuss-laden vengeance" (Pitchfork) to "the future" by NME.

They're due in the UK next month for the Camden Crawl festival, should they make it to London all in one piece and reports of their live spectacle are to be believed, it's likely to be one of those moments.