There was no real way of detecting the bomb that went off worldwide the day Tyler, The Creator and Hodgy Beats of Los Angeles hip-hop collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All made their television debut on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” but we could see it flash in Fallon’s eyes, at the end, when Tyler jumped on the comedian from behind and wrapped his legs around his waist. It was that look of rabid glee that we hadn’t encountered since some of Fallon’s most high-pitched SNL performances, a minute widening of the pupils that seemed to convey that he was so excited about the trouble at hand, that he couldn’t believe it was actually happening.

Musically, the duo’s rendition of “Sandwitches” — a track from Tyler’s new solo album, Goblin – was about as climactic as two teenagers shouting at constant high volume over a flabby-sounding synth sample could be. The verses were almost entirely buried in speaker blare, the refrain nothing more than a shout-out to themselves (Wolf! Gang! Wolf! Gang!). It was the way the ski-masked rappers moved that saved the spot from the annals of competent but dull major network breakthroughs. Tyler and Hodgy seemed to be summoning the collective might of every last mitochondrion in their bodies to show the world that they were a force that was impossible to contain. How could we not be exhilarated, even touched, by the site of Tyler to bounding in acrobatic circles around Hodgy, yelling straight into the seated Fallon’s face, clearing the entire stage in a single, daredevil leap, and storming off to his dressing room, as though he’d suddenly decided he was through with the audience? Fallon, returning to the front of the stage, gestured toward the ambient smoke like it was a cloud of dust.

Tyler, de facto leader of OFWGKTA, or Odd Future, is as unstoppable as that kid in your 7th grade English class who used to crack fart jokes every two minutes while landing nothing but As — and leaving the entire school, teachers included, at a loss for a comeback. The video for his new single “Yonkers” — directed by Tyler himself, and posted to the gang’s Tumblr a few days after the Fallon appearance — opens with a shot of Tyler in profile, posing like The Thinker in his signature, flat-billed baseball cap (courtesy Supreme, a streetwear brand that appears in pretty much every OFWGKTA production). “I’m a fucking walking paradox, no I’m not,” he opens, lurching his head to face the viewer as a menacing bass note establishes the key of the song.
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