Odd Future

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Odd Future was formed in 2007 in Los Angeles by Tyler, the Creator along with Casey Veggies, Hodgy, Left Brain, the Super 3 (Matt Martians' production trio which included fictional characters Betty Vasolean and Yoshi Jankins Jr.) and Jasper Dolphin. The group's recording side was known for their rebellious, brutally honest, and profanity dense lyrics. In early 2008, Casey Veggies released Customized Greatly, Vol. 1, featuring Tyler on a few tracks. On November 15, 2008, Odd Future released their debut mixtape, The Odd Future Tape. On July 7, 2009, Hodgy released his debut mixtape, The Dena Tape. On December 25, 2009, Tyler, the Creator released his debut mixtape, Bastard. In 2008, Chicago-based rapper Brandun DeShay joined the collective, and in 2009, Atlanta-based producer Hal Williams, known as Pyramid Vritra, joined; the latter joined Matt Martians' Super 3 to form the Jet Age of Tomorrow. Earl Sweatshirt, Domo Genesis, Mike G, Frank Ocean, and Syd joined the group between 2009 and 2010. (Note: Skateboarder Na-Kel Smith was part of the group's extended circle but not a core musical member.) Earl Sweatshirt's debut mixtape, Earl, was released on Tumblr in March 2010. MellowHype, a duo composed of Hodgy and Left Brain, released their debut mixtape, YelloWhite, on February 24, 2010, and their debut album, BlackenedWhite was released in 2011. Domo Genesis released his debut mixtape, Rolling Papers on August 30, 2010, and Mike G released a mixtape, Ali, in 2010. The collective also released their second mixtape, Radical, near the middle of 2010. In November 2010, Odd Future completed a two-stop tour: the first was in London on November 5, 2010, and the second was in New York City on November 9, 2010. Their concerts have been compared

In Their Own Story

The garage smelled like warm asphalt and cheap energy drinks. Tyler sat cross-legged on a concrete floor, a laptop balanced on his knees, editing a skate clip where Earl had just wiped out over a curb in a way that looked almost choreographed. Hodgy was in the corner, fingers flying over a MPC, laying down a beat that sounded like a broken radio playing through a car window. YG was filming on a phone, narrating in that deadpan voice of his, and Ab-Soul was reciting bars into a voice memo, eyes closed, as if the words were arriving from somewhere above the fluorescent light. Nobody had a plan. Nobody had a manager. The only thing they had was the next upload, the next freestyle, the next stupid idea that made one of them snort-laugh into a can of soda. Tyler hit save, typed the title with a typo he'd never fix, and hit upload. Somewhere in the comments, a stranger would type 'this is the realest shit I've ever seen' and the whole thing would feel, for one more night, like it might actually matter. That was the future. Odd, sure. But theirs.

Reader's Guide

Everything starts with a group of friends in the South LA area, filming skateboarding clips and posting them online around 2007. The music is rough, the humor is crude, and the whole operation runs on a single laptop and a shared sense that they are doing something no one else is. The stakes are impossibly low—views, laughs, the approval of a handful of peers. But the audience's perception is set here: these are not performers. They are kids being themselves, unmediated, and that rawness is the hook. The collective's identity is forged in this period, and every later evolution is measured against it. Chapter Two: The Noise and the Name. As Odd Future gains a following, the collective leans into shock value. The YouTube content becomes more confrontational, the personas more exaggerated, the group identity more mythologized. Tyler's music carries the weight of the collective's reputation, and the line between Tyler the individual and Tyler the Odd Future figure blurs. What's at stake is credibility versus notoriety—the audience is growing, but so is the scrutiny. The collective's name becomes a brand, a shield, and a target simultaneously. Fans begin to see the group not as a prank channel but as a genuine artistic unit, and that shift in perception changes the rules for everyone involved. Members begin to branch out. Earl's introspective songwriting, YG's street narratives, Hodgy's lo-fi production, Ab-Soul's technical lyricism—each voice finds its own lane while still carrying the Odd Future imprint. The collective as a unified act slowly recedes, not through conflict but through natural growth. Tyler's solo career accelerates, and the narrative focus shifts from the group to the individual. The audience's perception completes its arc: Odd Future is no longer a collective to follow but a lineage to trace. The garage is still there, but the camera is pointed at different faces now, and the future, for all of them, is no longer odd. It's just theirs.

Did You Know?

• Odd Future's debut mixtape, The Odd Future Tape, was self-released on November 15, 2008.
• Earl Sweatshirt's debut mixtape, Earl, was released on Tumblr in March 2010.
• Odd Future had an Adult Swim comedy skit show called Loiter Squad, which ran from 2012 to 2014.
• In November 2010, Odd Future completed a two-stop tour with shows in London on November 5 and New York City on November 8.
• On May 28, 2015, Tyler, the Creator hinted on Twitter that Odd Future was breaking up, saying 'although its no more, those 7 letters are forever.'

Origins & Collective Identity

Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All—commonly shortened to OF or OFWGKTA—emerged from Los Angeles in 2007, brought together by Tyler, the Creator alongside Casey Veggies, Hodgy, Left Brain, Matt Martians' production trio the Super 3 (which included fictional characters Betty Vasolean and Yoshi Jankins Jr.), and Jasper Dolphin. What made the collective distinctive was its refusal to be defined by a single discipline; its roster spanned rappers, producers, filmmakers, skateboarders, actors, and clothing designers. The recording side was immediately recognizable for its rebellious, brutally honest, and profanity-dense lyricism. Over the next couple of years the circle expanded to include Brandun DeShay, Pyramid Vritra, Domo Genesis, Mike G, Earl Sweatshirt, L-Boy, Frank Ocean, and Na-Kel Smith. The group's early output was almost entirely self-released, beginning with Casey Veggies' Customized Greatly, Vol. 1 in early 2008 and culminating in the collective's debut mixtape, The Odd Future Tape, on November 15, 2008.

Mixtapes, Tours & the Punk-Rock Stage

After the 2008 debut, Odd Future kept a relentless pace of solo and collaborative releases throughout 2009 and 2010—Hodgy's The Dena Tape, Tyler's Bastard, MellowHype's YelloWhite and BlackenedWhite, Domo Genesis' Rolling Papers, and Mike G's Ali all landed in that window. The group's second mixtape, Radical, arrived mid-2010 and marked a significant jump in their popularity. The collective's live shows drew comparisons to punk rock concerts, featuring stagediving, moshing, and members deliberately antagonizing the crowd. In November 2010 they completed a two-stop tour hitting London on the 5th and New York City on the 8th. By April 2011 the group had signed with RED Distribution and Sony Music Entertainment to launch their own imprint, Odd Future Records, and announced the 27-stop Golf Wang Tour, kicking off at the House of Blues in San Diego on September 28, 2011. Their debut studio album, The OF Tape Vol. 2, dropped on March 20, 2012, serving as a relative sequel to the original 2008 tape.

Loiter Squad & the Mainstream Crossover

In September 2011, Odd Future announced a sketch comedy television show, Loiter Squad, which premiered on Adult Swim in March 2012 and ran through 2014. The program featured Tyler, Jasper, Taco, Earl, and Lionel as main cast members, with other collective members popping up in cameos. It was produced by Dickhouse Productions, the same company behind Jackass, lending the show a deliberately irreverent, prank-driven tone. Around the same period the group's broader creative footprint was expanding rapidly: Tyler signed a one-album deal with XL Recordings and released Goblin in May 2011, while Frank Ocean self-released Nostalgia, Ultra in February of that year. In October 2011, Tyler shared a link to a 13-track compilation called 12 Odd Future Songs, pulling together work from Domo Genesis, Hodgy Beats, Mike G, Jet Age of Tomorrow, MellowHype, the Internet, and himself. Frank Ocean's debut studio album, Channel Orange, followed in July 2012, and by December 2012 he had collected six Grammy nominations for 2013.

Fragmentation, Disbandment & Reunion

Odd Future's official status has never been settled with a definitive announcement. The group fell into prolonged inactivity after 2015, and numerous members have publicly indicated there are no plans for the collective to move forward, leading the broader music community to treat Odd Future as effectively disbanded. Internal friction had been building for years: Brandun DeShay was removed from the group in 2010 following a dispute with Tyler, Casey Veggies departed to focus on his solo career, and Earl Sweatshirt spent roughly two years away at an at-risk teens boarding school in Samoa before rejoining the stage in February 2012. Despite the lack of a formal breakup, the collective did reconvene for reunion performances in 2018 and again in 2023, suggesting that the bond formed in a Los Angeles bedroom in 2007 retained enough pull to bring the members back into the same room, even if a full-scale Odd Future project never materialized.

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