First things first: the Koreatown Oddity isn’t Korean. He may be a wolf, but I’ve never seen him with the mask removed. You can tell from the costumes and punchlines that DOOM and Kool Keith are the two most direct fathers to Dominique Purdy’s rap style. But if you open your ears, the influences go way further than rap parochialism. Within the first few bars, he’s already lamenting the early obituaries filed on Mitch Hedburg and Patrice O’ Neal. He’s got the gift of compressing incredible amounts of biographical attention into a few bars (8th grade, anime nickname, sporting waves, bald fade, black and Orange Air Forces.”) Or flashbacks to getting jacked for bus passes. Written on a page, it seems like a nonsensical string of descriptions. But it’s nostalgia without being sappy. It’s a glance to the time well before he tossed on a mask.
It fits that the Koreatown is in his name, because the references are quintessentially local — right down to the Sportie LA shout out, pupusas, Roscoe’s and Korean slang. After all, these are the film roll splices and deleted scenes. The best rappers bring you back without being didactic. Richard Hamilton winning the chip at UCONN. Kadeem Hardison and Jasmine Guy references. Even a Jayo Felony shout. Ras G handles the beat to make the eccentricity covalent. The Oddity just dropped his debut, 200 Tree Rings on the nascent New Los Angeles imprint. I’m posting previous videos and boomerangs below the jump because I can recite every bit of dialogue in the original Teen Wolf.
