Dear Sara

Sara of Tegan and Sara recently offered a Call for Change. I, for one, am in support. The background is this: there is this rap collective known as Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All who are led by a rapper known as Tyler, the Creator. They are known for being brilliant and controversial. Controversial for their lyrical content which reportedly includes many instances of murder and rape. I have to say reportedly because I only heard one song, downloaded free from Pitchfork's best of 2010 list, I listened once and deleted it - the only song that I deleted from that list, and yes, because of the lyrical content. Sara is right to call for a change here. I too have heard wonderful things about this group and much of the time the lyrical content is mentioned as statement of fact rather than criticism, and it does seem that people are afraid to issue any critique of the lyrics. I will add another reason to Sara's arguments regarding class and race. I think some people are afraid of having their own hypocrisies pointed out to them. For example, didn't Jimi Hendrix sing about murdering his woman, didn't John Lennon write a song about threatening to kill a woman because she cheated, didn't the Beastie Boys make sexist jokes on their first album, didn't Beck write weird R&B and rap about lesbians, didn't Public Enemy say some anti-semitic things? (I picked artists whose work I like and own here for a reason). I think some of us worry that by singling out Tyler, we are opening ourselves up to the criticism that we support artists that portray some of the same ideas. For me, the difference here is that we know each of those artists' true beliefs by their other actions and by their admissions that in some cases they were portraying a character. From the little I know, Tyler or the rest of OFWGKTA, have done little to redeem themselves.