Backstage before that Music Hall of Williamsburg show, we discuss the distinct priorities of all the groups' members, and how it becomes a major part of their job to provide for each according to his or her needs: Hodgy Beats has a son; Tyler travels separately from the rest of OF much of the time, with very different preferences while on tour; Syd has a recording studio, on the verge of becoming its own budding business. The show itself is a microcosm of the complexity: It's a Tyler and, to a lesser extent, Earl show, so there are a number of OF guys in support, but because it's not an Odd Future show, the whole crew isn't there, and they only play Tyler and some Earl songs. Juggling all this requires as much personal discretion as business savviness. We discuss the perfectionism of Frank Ocean, arguably the group's most famous and most culturally significant member after his "coming-out letter" and subsequent albumbecame one of the most talked about stories of last year. There was never a sense that this candidness was being mediated by a team of professionals intent on raising the profile of an important new artist, and the Clancys insist that the letter was 100% Ocean. But considering that the letter was initially slated to be in's liner notes, and it seems obvious, at least to me, that the Clancys would have been consulted by Ocean, explicitly or implicitly. Kelly in particular seems to be protective of and close to Ocean. Her interpretations of his then-recent, peculiar Grammys performance — an incredibly ambitious music video that accompanied Frank's performance of "Forrest Gump" — are particularly telling. "He walked downstage and just the look on his face," Kelly says. "He was just the most disappointed. It was heartbreaking. He just won two Grammys and it was exciting and then he just looked like — it was a bummer." The Clancys' emphasis on Ocean's high standards minimizes their own role in making them realistic. Originally Christopher "Lonny" Breaux, Ocean was rotting on the roster of Def Jam and had a collection of songs that had yet to be released. After joining the Odd Future fold, Ocean eventually released the songs as a free mixtape called nostalgia, ULTRA that essentially launched his career and, ironically, repaired his relationship with Def Jam, which would eventually release. Then there's Earl, who has already reached levels of skill and songcraft at age 19 that all but a handful of rappers can even consider within their flight range. Thanks to his mysterious MIA status during Odd Future's initial rise — it was eventually revealed that his mother sent him to school in Samoa for drug and depression issues, a story covered at length in this lengthy New Yorker profile — the chant "Free Earl" became a rallying cry at shows. Earl has his own individual contract with Columbia Records, which includes his own subsidiary label, Tan Cressida, so the Clancys do not directly manage Earl like they do Tyler; Syd the Kid, the lesbian DJ behind funk duo The Internet; hazy rapper Domo Genesis; Mellowhype producer Left Brain and rapper Hodgy Beats; rapper Mike G — as well as Ocean, the kids who are in the TV show, and hardcore band Trash Talk. But it's clear from their interactions with Earl at the concert that, emotionally and colloquially, he remains on the same wavelength. "When he returned [from Samoa], he was 18 and there were people threatening his mom for the perception of what role she played in his life," Christian says. "And then he just came back." "You leave, you guys are at the same level," Kelly says. "You come home, and Tyler's been in the studio with Pharrell. He's had tacos with Jay Z. You're a little bit of a fish out of water. I'd be scared to death, too." Christian finishes the thought: "The main thing for us was to allow them to get back to that point. That's what Tyler in particular wanted. He just wanted his friend back. That was the goal for us. Fuck everything else." And professionally, this variety that Odd Future contains provides, again, that soil for creation, particularly in regard to Tyler. We discuss his new creative company, Camp Flog Gnaw, and what it means in the scope of artists doing promotion for brands: the idea, all enthusiastically laid out by Christian, is that, rather than create pre-roll that no one will ever pay attention to, Tyler will lend his style and talent to products he digs, and so each side will receive something from the other. How this will work remains to be seen after the first visible effort, with Mountain Dew, ran into what you would think would have been fairly predictable obstacles . Mountain Dew pulled the spots after accusations of racism and misogyny. But in an era in which execs would climb Everest if the 18–34 demo was at the top, it's hard to imagine anything but success considering the stranglehold Tyler, and his compatriots, seem to have on the minds, and wallets, of teenagers. Explaining Camp Flog Gnaw, Christian emphasizes that Tyler will only work with brands he uses and loves: The project is borne of his own enthusiasm for the projects themselves, like Mountain Dew. Second, Tyler controls all aspects of production, including conception, writing, directing, and casting, a level of control that companies are reluctant to lend to massive ad agencies, much less one 22-year-old kid. Camp Flog Gnaw, maybe more than anything else Odd Future has done yet, demonstrates the Clancys' influence and creativity: Rather than try and slide Tyler into the conventional pitchman role that most music managers would be ecstatic to obtain for their charges, the Clancys helped create an unprecedented new way for their artist to have a hand in marketing, and then they persuaded companies to roll with it. Tyler becomes every part of the advertising process at once, and it doesn't limit him to straight advertisements. "They don't give a shit about the model," Christian says. "Kelly and I have Ph.D.s in the bullshit part of the model because we came up in the record business, so it's a good match. It's our job to navigate and have real conversations with them. We go on tour a lot, because we're not on the radio. And we go with them because that's where it lives, that's where I get an intuition. You have to really see it, and that helps me navigate. These are kids, they put their trust in us to do what we think is best, we for damn sure need to be in the mix a little bit." In practical terms, this means that the Clancys become the facilitators for Odd Future's ideas: When the group wants to make a TV show, they help get it made; when they want to release a book of photos , they help get it published; when brands reach out to Tyler, they help him create a full-fledged commercial production company. "We surround them with the best people," Christian says. "If we don't know how to do it, we find someone who does." And it's hard to argue with the results. While quantifying the cultural significance of a musician in 2013 is pretty tough, you can point to's renewal on the one side as a symbol of the group's viability, and on the other, the sales of, a huge improvement on its predecessor despite the lack of a killer single. (Most remarkable about this is thatdid have that single, "Yonkers.") Tyler's fame has become such that, even without a radio or viral hit, he can still move almost 100,000 units in a week. Rather than having to coerce their charges into the needs of a larger label or corporation, the Clancys' lean operation can operate with far fewer constraints. One way of doing this was starting Odd Future Records , which gives the artists 100% creative control while still taking advantage of Sony's distribution capabilities. The Clancys see themselves in direct opposition to the major labels' conventional wisdom, relying on creating hits at the expense of organically developing an artist, because the two songs out of 100 that stick can pay for the 98 that don't. Which isn't to say that tried-and-true methods of promotion and exposure haven't been effective from minute one "They were touring, no different than bands in the '70s and '80s, these specific circuits and markets, around and around," says Columbia's Majid. "Then they put an album out after two years and do 100,000 [copies] the first week. And you're like, 'How did that happen?'" "This is about sinking the fucking ship and rebuilding it from the ground up to be a company that facilitates the modern artist," Christian says. "We tried to gut it just by doing it ourselves. And Sony believed in us, so I respect that. We couldn't work within the system. We'd get kicked off the label in a week. Maybe that system works for the Pussycat Dolls, but it does not work for Odd Future."