The three crews that influenced Tyler The Creator to start Odd Future
Tyler The Creator is one of the culture’s most creative and interesting hip-hop artists. From Flower Boy to IGOR, the LA rapper has been challenging the status quo for years and hasn’t gone unnoticed. Despite starting off as just one character in a large crew, Tyler The Creator quickly became a fan favourite due to his lyricism, quirky aesthetic and funny personality. Since his emergence, the lyricist and trend-setter has been able to collaborate with the likes of Kanye West, Pharrell and Vince Staples.
Since 2014, he has been a standout artist who receives vast amounts of critical acclaim for his ability to morph and integrate the sonics of hip-hop into other genres, and as he continues to grow, he has been recognised as an all-rounder who can also produce at an exceptional level.
Still, most know him as the founder of Odd Future, and that’s where he began his career. Odd Future were a phenomenon when they first surfaced in the early 2010s. Formed in LA, the kooky collective exploded into the mainstream in 2011. The crew’s distinct look came with a previously unheard sound that took the culture by storm.
Odd Future were pioneering in the way they effortlessly fused LA Skate culture with hip-hop and managed to created a cult following. Hip-hop and skate culture are entirely separate entities that would have seemed incompatible before. However, Odd Future seamlessly married them.
Nothing like the collective had been seen before. However, during a 2024 appearance on Apple Music’s Art Official Intelligence Radio, Tyler, the Creator, discussed the multiple inspirations that led him to form the group.
The Odd Future frontman was born in the early 1990s and unveiled that the blueprint for his crew was taken from the labels and groups of the early 2000s, highlighting Eminem’s Shady Records and Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella. Furthermore, he also took inspiration from how Nas supported MCs from his area, Queensbridge, in the late ’90s.
Recalling his childhood, Tyler told the De La Soul hosts, “I grew up in the year 2000. I was eight turning nine, So I’m looking at like eight, turning nine. So let’s say it’s 2002, 10 turning 11. You’ve got Jay with the whole Roc-A-Fella, you’ve got Eminem’s Shady, Aftermath, you have all these different crews that felt like family.”
He continued, “Nas was bringing Queensbridge group like Jungle and them out. Niggas had this thing. So in my formative years, I’m just watching these crews.” Watching all of these tight-knit groups inspired Tyler to bring him and his friends into the music industry despite their outsider status.
Tyler explained to the hosts, “I’m from Los Angeles, so gang culture is already a prevalent thing, but I feel like just the main layer of that is a family-knitted thing like, no, these are my boys, you come with me. When I was making Odd Future, outside of the magazine thing, it just actually felt like family for a bunch of outcasts. Everyone in Odd Future was the black sheep of their family. So us coming together and just like, nah, fuck y’all.”
The Chromakopia creator also acknowledged he missed the era of crews like Native Tongues but expressed how witnessing the unity within Roc-A-Fella shaped his own vision, concluding, “Seeing people get Roc-A-Fella chains was like, oh, you’re part of the family. So I think just subconsciously emulating the sentiment that they held was easy.”