At the Subway restaurant near Lafayette and Canal last night, there was a wispy/spindly young white kid with glasses and Jansport backpack–he spotted another kid with a similar description and made an assumption: “Are you here [here meaning near Santos Party House] for Odd Future?” I was wearing Brooks Brothers and Oliver Peoples, I’m white and 21 years old. It seemed incredible that spindlykid could type me as a fan of a pint-sized (median age roughly 17) black rap collective grounded in skate culture, swag, and winking satanism. Until we went inside, anyway, and saw the whiteout.

OFWGKTA stands for Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. A brief unofficial and semi-ethnographic cataloging of the crowd, and somewhat of a review:

1. One drummer for the popular indie band Vampire Weekend and female companion
2. A blogger and Esquire magazine employee with a large twitter following
3. Most of Das Racist
4. A white majority
5. A fan tweeting from the front row about the tameness of the crowd in comparison to previous Odd Future audiences in Washington, DC
6. At least three men wearing vests
7. A man with a Cape Cod sweatshirt, pridefully worn, a Ron Howard haircut
8. An eight-year-old child, unsupervised
9. A cat-eyed couple in their mid-twenties with matted dread-locked hair, apparently under some influence, kissing during lines about murder

As the show started, lyrics were shouted in unison to one of Odd Future’s leader Tyler the Creator’s more popular songs. Climbing on top of towers of speakers with wiry arms, he clung to the ceiling with an easygoing ghoulishness. The unison-shouting: “Come on kids, fuck that class and hit that bong / Let’s buy guns and kill those kids with dads and mom / With nice homes, 401Ks, and nice ass lawns.” I’d never condemned my lawn before, but it seemed just. The amount of self-loathing depends on the choice to be shouted at or to shout with.

A lyric: “I’m stabbin’ any bloggin’ faggot hipster with a Pitchfork.”

But it’s a joke we’re all supposed to be in on, maybe. The fun calls for anarchy and lyrics that can serve as a suitable vehicle for the logical extreme of white guilt gave way to silliness. Tyler’s asthmatic lungs were bothered by all the smoke from drugs, the asthmatics in the audience cheered as he asked for an inhaler—a donation skittered onto the stage. Not everyone was feeling generous—Tyler’s shoe was stolen from this braggart after Tyler threw himself into the crowd.

Another song, having grown popular in the past week or so partially because of its music video featuring Tyler eating a cockroach, came near the end. This was a favorite.

Tyler the Creator – Yonkers – NYC – 2/15/11 from Brook Bobbins on Vimeo.

The last selection was new. Tyler mentioned that it’s a song he wants concerned mothers to contact Bill O’Reilly about. We all got frenzied quickly, mostly shouting with. Having fallen to the floor in mid-mosh, mid-screams of “Kill people / Burn shit / Fuck school,” I righted myself feeling the taste of blood. On closer inspection it was a tiny inner-lip cut—with all these cameras and self-loathing, I sort of wished it was bigger.

Odd Future will perform on Jimmy Fallon tonight, will meet more of white America including some moms.