Goblin Ethics

Odd Future Wolf Gang has taken the music world by storm over the past year and the leader of the group Tyler, the Creator released his major label debut in May to a hail of both criticism and praise. On Goblin Tyler and co. take graphic lyric content to new extremes, leaving audiences shocked, repulsed, and starving for more. In this paper I seek to focus on the many ethical dilemmas listeners face when listening to Goblin and to contemplate the reasons Tyler chose to create such ethically challenging music. Using the READR method as a guideline, I take a step-by-step process in illustrating the ethical concepts in Goblin.

Reviewing the text with a keen eye for ethical concerns is important in order to compile all elements and context that give Goblin its ethical (or perhaps unethical) character. A good place to start is the music video for the album’s first single, Yonkers, since this is the first taste of Goblin released to the public (February 2010). Over a menacing hip-hop march, Tyler raps in paradoxical rhymes, touching on themes such as kinky sex (“threesomes with a f---ing triceratops”), murder of popular celebrities (“stab Bruno Mars”), recreational drug use (“I slipped myself some pink Xannies”), while also injecting a constant stream of profanity including racial and sexual slurs. In the video Tyler plays absentmindedly with a large cockroach while he’s rapping, which he eventually eats. The song finishes as Tyler puts a noose around his neck, climbs onto the stool he’d been sitting on, and kicks it out from under himself. We see his feet kicking as he, presumably, dies.

The themes mentioned above are only several ethics-challenging features that are prominent in Goblin. Others are: nihilism, hate for his parents, sexism, rape, mass murder, disdain for Christianity, child murder, disrespect for the elderly, and satanic references, to name a few. Tyler is particularly adept at combining these elements in a single line of a rap, for example, “I raped a pregnant b---- and told my friends I had a threesome” (combining kinky sex, child abuse, sexism, and rape.)

Throughout Goblin we hear Tyler conversing with a shrink-like character, Dr. TC. Here Tyler’s nihilistic attitude prevails time and time again; his verses often surmise with some declaration of “I don’t give a f---”, or “f--- everything”. It’s an anticlimactic conclusion to his expertly crafted rhymes that are often quite graphic and contribute to a vivid image in the listener’s head. There is no doubt that Tyler is a skilled rapper and at only 20 years old arguably the best of his age. It is important to note that no members of Odd Future are over 21.

Since “Yonkers dropped and left the craniums mindf---ed” Tyler and Odd Future have received co-signs from several big names in rap. Getting a co-sign means to receive compliments either verbally or in writing. Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Diddy, and Method Man, among others, have all co-signed Tyler, giving him their stamp of approval. MTV’s audience solidified Tyler’s prowess by voting him “Best New Artist” at their Video Music Awards. Why is Tyler the recipient of all this praise when the content of his music runs contrary to the “good” ethics practiced by most of society?

Enumeration is the next step in the READR method; here I examine the component parts of Goblin that exist in and alongside the ethical diversions. This is essentially the story Tyler is telling with Goblin. We know this because he has said in an interview, “If you listen my albums you’ll see that each one is like a movie. It’s my own story, a crazy movie that’s always playing in my head.”

Let’s enumerate some of the facts about Tyler, Goblin, and Odd Future as a whole.

Dr. TC’s presence throughout the album is a personification of “Tyler’s Conscience”, who is both an antagonist and guidance counselor for Tyler. He and his friends, the Odd Future Wolf Gang, are self-made music stars who rap about their thoughts on modern culture, girls, and their own personal exploits. Their dark sense of humor is both charming and disgusting, as the critics’ voices can attest. They are dealing with becoming overnight stars, and even though they’ve made ripples in the mainstream music circles, they refuse to change their approach to suit the masses. Most popular music earns only loathing from them, however female pop stars in their age category are often targeted as the objects of their desire (Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, etc.)They are proud of their originality and of the fact that they worked their way from the bottom up, writing, producing, releasing, and even designing their own art for their music and their collective persona, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill them All.

Tyler’s personal emotional troubles stem from one main entity: the fact that he is a self-described bastard. Tyler has never met his father, this vacancy has had a profound impact on his life. Rather than keeping this information out of the public eye it has become a musing Tyler references in nearly every song. He says he hates the man who fathered him, he is undoubtably hurt that while most kids grow up with a father figure of some kind he has had nothing of the sort. Instead he has his “Gang of Wolves”, his family, all of whom he kills in two tracks on Goblin. Another emotional issue is the regrettable removal of Earl Sweatshirt from the group. As the story goes, Earl’s mother heard her son’s debut album and was so upset by it that she sent him to a remote recovery school for behaviorally challenged boys. This incident hurt Tyler deeply, as Earl was his main partner in crime (Tyler refers to Earl as his little brother) and, at 16, regarded by many as the group’s best rapper. In short, Tyler feels like he has had an uphill battle his whole life and now that he’s making headlines his dreams are coming true and still his troubles plague him.

If we look at the gangsta rap genre before Odd Future we find much of the same ethical borders crossed. High levels of profanity, sexism, racism, drug use, etc. are par for the course in the genre. Odd Future takes these elements and combines them with renewed creativity and imagination, along with minimalist backing tracks that give the listener the feeling of a cartoon horror movie. The resulting concoction is something to behold, because it is easy to consume yet arresting to our ingrained moral ethics. Some listeners feel it is too much for the moral senses and retreat to something less obscene, or at least something obscene in a more familiar way.

So what decisions are we faced with when Tyler drops this in our laps? If we bob our heads along and start to learn the lyrics are we too homophobic devil worshipping rapists? What are Tyler’s expectations of us, and what will society think of our choice? Suppose we believe that it’s all just a joke; Tyler has said the explicit content is included as such for his own amusement because he likes to make light of issues that others take very seriously. Surface analysis of each of those ethical decisions is needed before we may accept the music as art and not just a conglomerate of hate.

Why in some songs will Tyler only refer to females as b----es but other songs on the album, “She”, “Her”, and “Analog”, he is holding them in such a high esteem? Why don’t all women get this kind of respect? In each of those three songs he is trying to earn a woman’s affection and he shows a softer side as he details his feelings. In “Her” he states that not all females are b-----s: “All the b-----s they f--- are known as b-----s and sluts, but She’s special. I know to ya’ll I come off as rough, but I’m the nicest to Her. . . I want the cheesy date to the movies, the stupid walks on the beach and sharing straws in a cup, I never had that. . .”

Tyler also uses the words fag and faggot as a slur, as in “Now that mister fag is gone there’s nothing that can stop me.” Elsewhere on the album in a confrontation with Dr. TC Tyler insists that he is not homophobic; he has reiterated in interviews that he uses the word’s negative connotation to describe things he doesn’t like. Using the words b----, fag, f---, and nigga in numerous variations is ubiquitous in rap music so listeners are somewhat used to these profanities even without Odd Future’s influence.

But how do we adjust to ethical diversions that are not so common in rap, for instance stalking girls to kidnap and rape them; “hide your daughters, hide your sisters, hell hide grandmama too, cause the fisherman is rapin’ everybody in the pool.” For the amount of times Tyler references rape it is not unreasonable for listeners to assume that it is a fantasy of his. He has received harsh criticism from rape victims and anti-rape advocates for promoting the act in his music.

Religious slurs: “F--- Heaven I ain’t showing no religion respect.” All of Odd Future are atheist and they hardly pass an opportunity to badmouth Jesus and other aspects of Christianity. Obviously this a key factor in polarizing audiences because Christians will not listen to blasphemy against their God. Tyler really feels that religion and Christianity in particular is a sham; he aligns Odd Future with Satan in numerous cases, for instance in “Tron Cat”, “Satan’s getting jealous of the Wolves, the demons say they preferrin us...” and in the same breath ridicules the church: “we’re murderous, young enough to get the f---in’ priest to come and flirt with us.” Atheist listeners may identify lines like the latter as well-placed strikes to religion, however to openly bash others’ beliefs is, as a whole, considered morally wrong.

Violence in Goblin is completely over the top, as evidenced in “Tron Cat”, “While you niggas stacking bread, I can stack a couple dead bodies, making red look less of a color more of a hobby.” The group relishes in graphic descriptions of violence, both for its dominating factor as well as shock value. The violence is purely a product of the members’ imaginations; they do not actually practice what they preach. At the start of the song “Radicals” Tyler offers this “random disclaimer: Hey don’t do anything I say in this song, ok? It’s f---ing fiction. If anything happens don’t blame me White America. F--- Bill O’Reilly.” This conveys that he doesn’t really condone violence, but he uses it for creative expression and shock value.

Determining the context and reasons for these ethical decisions Tyler makes is crucial in deciding whether or not to omit certain sections for ethics’ sake. As listeners we are the ultimate deciders of whether we will give Odd Future our attention, based on our own ethical beliefs. The decisions we make are often unconscious but they tell a lot about our own ethical standards and understanding. Upon inspection we can understand the background leading to the ethical diversions in Goblin and it is up to us if we feel the diversions are part of the creative expression and if they are necessary.

Can Tyler afford to forego some violent descriptions without sacrificing his artistic intentions? Violent descriptions are practically a trademark of Odd Future’s music, creating the big shock factor that is responsible for a good deal of what makes the group different from other entities in rap. We can also factor in the rappers’ young age, citing the media desensitization of their generation in regard to violence. To them it is not a big deal to talk about murder casually, albeit in a fictional context. As long as the listener knows that they don’t condone real-world violence then it is the listeners’ choice to listen to the music or not.

Another key trademark of Tyler’s music is his candid portrayal of the emotional struggle of growing up not knowing his father. This is a unique issue that is not often portrayed in popular music that supplies the music’s character, context, and an empathic response from the listener. Since it is a real sentiment that has affected the artist’s life it should be kept in at all costs. The detailing of these feelings helps listeners understand where Tyler is coming from when he approaches music and lyric production. It can also be taken as reason for Tyler’s resentful and nihilistic attitude toward society. Being fatherless (or bastardized) makes him feel at odds with many members of society who did not have to deal with this difficult issue their whole lives.

The gangsta rap ethic is not tolerable by everyone. Followers of the genre know that the use of profane racial slurs, curses, and negativity is part of what differentiates it from other styles of music. If the listener does not believe in this ethic than they can choose not to listen to gangsta rap; if they do choose to listen however, they must accept that they will be exposed to relentless use of explicit language. Our First Amendment allows artists to publish this sort of content and in doing so they should realize what the ramifications may be; criticism and polarization of the audience being the foremost.

As an artist in the United States Tyler is well within his rights by publishing this type of music. He has certainly learned the consequences of releasing such ethically controversial material, but the praise he’s garnered from the music world is proof that such diversions can be accepted. Judging by the massive degree of success that Odd Future is experiencing we can expect that they will continue to release such controversial music. In the end the choice falls to the listener’s own preference for the types of ethical diversions they come in contact with. Is the music all about hate? Or is it a creative detour from the mainstream that is authentic, brash, and more than a little refreshing? You decide.

Ritual Strength in HXC - an anthropologic study by Agustin McCord

In every major city on the globe there is an underground subculture generally known as the hardcore scene. The scene centers around a genre of music, also known as hardcore, that is, in most general terms, a hybrid of heavy metal and punk rock. The purpose of this paper is to turn an anthropological eye to this scene in Albuquerque and to discuss the ritualization of hardcore concerts or “shows”. I entered the scene when I attended a show with my girlfriend and her sister, the latter of whom has been an avid follower for some years. For my analysis I draw on the the approaches of three anthropologists: Bronslaw Malinowski (functionalist), Victor Turner (symbolic funtionalist), and Clifford Geertz (symbolic anthropologist). A show is a ritual event in the hardcore scene which reinforces counter-mainstream ideologies and gives its followers cathartic release from the oppression they believe we suffer from.

In order to discuss this topic we must first verify the degree of ritualization of hardcore shows. I do this using a definition of ritual that covers many factors, the chief ones being that it is collectively meaningful activity, markedly different from everyday life, and requires an attentive state of mind. We must look at how these characteristics apply to what one encounters at a hardcore show.

First off, the concert event occurs in a music venue that fans must pay a small fee to get into. These shows are generally held about once a week. When they enter the venue for a show the attendees are leaving the ordinary public sphere and entering a new environment, one that is completely directed toward the music and the dancing that accompanies it. The shows have collective meaning for the audience members because fans are all attending for the same reason: they appreciate hardcore music therefore they are buying a ticket to see the music performed live. Lyrics express a powerful message that audience members believe and adhere to, we can say that the performance expresses values. What these values are will be discussed in depth later. At the show fans can collect totems, whether they are t-shirts or cds, these objects are taken home and serve to remind the fans of the music and the scene.

Hardcore fans have a particular style of dress and at shows this style is emphasized. Carefully pressed t-shirts, flannels, and hoodies are worn, often bearing the emblem of a previous show. Straight or skinny leg jeans are ubiquitous, as are simple Vans shoes such as slip-ons or “authentics”. Colors of garments are mainly black or grey, with brighter colors used to call attention to one specific part of the outfit. Many choose to adorn their bodies with tattoos; at shows those with tattoos often wear a garment that allows their ink to be seen.

Mannerisms at a show are specific as well. No one smiles unless provoked to do so; everyone wears a stern expression. Fans practice what Tanya Luhrmann would call metakinesis, gestures that express emotion to viewers: they only dance in a very specific style know as hardcore dancing. The behavior is repetitive and stereotyped, each song demands a reiteration of all the moves and certain moves correspond with certain sections of the song. Due to the presence of all these factors we can say hardcore shows are moderately ritualized events.

To further understand hardcore shows as a ritual it is important to understand the fans of hardcore, those people involved in the scene. Here I will give a very general description of the demographic which the majority of fans fall into. Most are between the ages of fifteen to twenty-five and are lower to middle-class. Those in the younger portion are reliant on their parents for support, while those in the elder support themselves with blue-collar jobs. Very few of the people one encounters at shows attend college. Once again, this is a very generalized description of hardcore fans and there are obviously outliers that do not fit this demographic. However, they all share a love for the fast, heavy music that is hardcore.

When I was first introduced to the hardcore scene I was unconsciously making a somewhat functionalist analysis of it. I walked into the venue, whose walls were painted black and plastered with thousands of stickers, evidence of all the bands that had played there. Most of the people wore black and for the most part they did not look very happy. There was an energy there, and as the bands set up their equipment, the energy built into an atmospheric tension. People walked around the floor, some chatted quietly, the rest were mute. My synopsis was “These people seem angry.” My friend introduced me to a couple she knew. We talked a little and I learned that the couple was from San Felipe pueblo, that the girl worked at the truck stop there, and that the fellow was unemployed. They had saved what little money they could spare to drive down to Albuquerque and attend the show, which featured one of their favorite bands, Despised Icon.

When the music started I had to cover my ears because I was taken aback by the volume and the abrasive quality of the singer’s voice. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, except for a lapse in which all the instruments quieted long enough for him to say, “In three seconds, EVERYBODY F---ING MOVE!” I saw a space clear in the middle of the crowd and in the next instant the floor was filled with bodies swinging, kicking, and spinning in a manner that was remarkably ungraceful, yet beautiful at the same time. The blows were not directed at their fellows, rather they were extended with full force into the air then retracted as quickly as they had been thrown. I immediately thought my assertion was true, that these people were truly angry at the world around them and were expressing that anger by the violent form of dancing that is simply known as “hardcore”. The show continued for roughly 45 minutes with fans taking turns dancing in the center of the floor, usually four to seven at a time. By the end everyone was sweating, having taken their turn(s) in the pit, and the mood had changed drastically. I now saw smiles instead of scowls and people were conversing much more freely than before. The tension was all but gone and a feeling of camaraderie had replaced it. I had all the information I needed to make a Malinowskian functionalist analysis of what I had just witnessed.

The functionalist approach is to observe a culture synchronically, or from one point of view, and to look at what empirical function is performed by a given activity. This function may or may not be apparent for members of the society. I perceive that the show satisfies an emotional desire for the members of the hardcore community because it allows them to give release to their internal rage.

Most hardcore fans work tedious jobs, or are under the monetary restraint of their parents. This troubles them, but they feel there is little chance of escape from the monotony society has wrought on people. They feel that their diminished status is unjust oppression of ideas and free spirits inside them yearning to breathe free. They have anger towards current consumer and commercial-centered ideologies and towards people who wait for things to get done for them instead of affecting the action themselves. The music is their message to mainstream pop culture, which they believe makes people numb. By attending the shows they are showing their support for the message, as well as practicing the cathartic release of their pent-up anger through hardcore dancing. This is my functional analysis of my first experience of the hardcore scene.

The approach I took was similar to the way Bronslaw Malinowski studied the presence of magic in Kula culture (Malinowski, 392-6). Malinowski was an outsider to the Kula and his study was very much from his own perspective; he observed the way they lived and his conclusion is a product of his western scrutiny on a culture that has little in common with European culture. Because of this application of one’s cultural (in this case Western) ideas upon another’s (indigenous), Malinowski’s reasoning for the prevalence of magic in the Kula culture was probably different from the Kula’s own reasoning for the presence of magic in their lives. I feel that this is analogous to my study, for I was applying mainstream ideas and functional reasoning to account for a ritual in a subculture that is very counter-mainstream. As I returned home from my first hardcore show I felt there was something more to the scene other than just anger and release, so with a heightened curiosity I attended more hardcore shows. I aimed to submerge myself more in the scene in order to delve a deeper meaning behind the ritualized event of the show that plays a prominent role in these people’s lives.

Thinking about Victor Turner’s communitas, I am able to apply many of its traits to the scene at a hardcore show. Turner contrasts communitas with regular structured society: “The first of society as a structured, differentiated, and often hierarchical system. . . .separating men in terms of ‘more’ or ‘less’. The second is of society as an unstructured and relatively undifferentiated community of equal individuals who submit together to the general authority of the ritual elders” (Turner, p. 96). We understand Turner’s communitas as a state characterized by equality, and identification with the group as a whole rather than with an individual self, and caused by being between one level of status and another (the liminal phase). Most of the people involved in hardcore have moved on from the status of childhood, but are yearning for some greater status in which they can effect power, or lead others. We may characterize the stage they are in as a liminal stage.

A hardcore show is characterized by similar minds and attitudes coming together, forming one crowd, one organism that throbs to the beat of the ritual elders (the musicians performing). Differences are put aside, statuses are equalized and people tend to view one another with fraternal affection as they dance together in the stereotyped manner. I realized this at my second show when I witnessed one dancer lose his balance and crash to the floor. The person dancing next to him stopped kicking and flailing, offered a hand to the fallen one and pulled him to his feet. Up to that point I would have expected the second dancer to continue dancing and ignore the other’s misfortune. I thought the music was all about violence and aggression. But I now saw unity amongst all the members of the crowd; they were encouraging each other to step out and express their spiritual strength through the dance. They were not differentiating themselves, rather they were identifying with the music and with the crowd as a whole. “Communitas has an existential quality,” Turner wrote, “It involves the whole man in his relation to other whole men” (p. 127). At the show we see people dressed in a similar “uniform”, relating to one another on a basic level: musical experience and bodily expression, and also on a moral level. There is no need for hierarchies of status, because the energy created by the communitas is more powerful than any individual status could be. I believe this feeling of communitas is one of the main factors that causes people to return again and again to the most important event in hardcore culture: the show.

But what does the show symbolize to the fans? Clifford Geertz asked the same question regarding the Balinese cockfights he witnessed in 1958. To get his answer Geertz observed the participants closely, he became friendly with them, and he found out how the cockfight symbolized the culminating emotional moments we humans experience, which the Balinese people were able to recreate and intensify through the cockfighting activity. “What the cockfight says it says in a vocabulary of sentiment. . . . . Attending cockfights and participating in them is, for the Balinese, a kind of sentimental education” (Geertz, p. 449).

In order to explain the symbolic meaning of hardcore shows for the hxc* community I focused on one show in particular. The bands playing that night were Stray From the Path, from Long Island, and Despised Icon, from Quebec. Both bands are defining examples of contemporary hardcore music yet each band approaches the message in their own way. Despised’s lyrics read like poetry and conjure graphic imagery in the listener’s mind: “Mirror of our seedy creation Problems of society written by money-eyed producers Cheapest stories, uninteresting scripts Mystified zombies avid of the illusory disfigured stories from the mechanical eyes. You’re contaminated, hypnotized by the box”, from the song “Interfere in Your Days”. Much of hxc lyrical content centers around pointing out problems with the ideologies that affect us. Stray From the Path, heavily influenced by revolutionary rock band Rage Against the Machine, promotes similar values. “I can tell that you have been under his control. Making subtle movements being oppressed inside your home. I see the problems, I see the broken homes”, from the song Damien, by SFTP.

It is a well-evidenced fact that hardcore is anti-commercial, anti-mainstream media, and anti-capitalist government. Every show I attended had these sentiments promoted in varying degrees. However, as I learned to discern the lyrics better, I found that the main value being promoted by these bands is not a negative one, instead it is fraternity. Fans rally together to hear the bands pointing out these problems in our society, expressing their anger through dance. But they are not only expressing anger through the dance, they are also expressing strength. The communitas vibe is crucial here, because it is the key component of the strength of the scene. “(Communitas) dissolves the norms that govern structured and institutionalized relationships and is accompanied by experiences of unprecedented potency” (Turner, p. 128). By experiencing this communitas at shows fans are reinforcing the subculture that says, “We are not ok with these structures in our society, and we have the strength the stand up to these structures.” Rituals have been said to be like performative verbs, in that they don’t effect some change per se, yet the act of doing the ritual is the change. Attending and participating at shows is the same way; fans don’t have the power to change society on an individual basis, yet by supporting these bands they are helping preserve the movement for future generations to be a part of. They define the scene by being at shows, and when they leave the show they carry with them the feeling of being separate and aware of the ideology that oppresses them. This knowledge is embedded in the character of their being, and this is why they continue to support hxc and attend shows.

Many of us are unaware of these deep societal values within hardcore, but they are the what defines it for the fans, and the fans are what give the values life and substance.

Bibliography

Malinowski, Bronslaw. Argonauts of the Western Pacific . Ch. XVII Magic and the Kula . pages 392-396.

Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process . Ch. 3 Liminality and Communitas . pages 94-130.

Geertz, Clifford. [book title unknown] Ch. 15/Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. pages 412-453.