At SXSW hip hop mogul, P Diddy, declared a little known group called Odd Future (also known as OFWGKTA or Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All) the future of the genre. Now this could have just been Diddy’s knack for flattery while trying to sign the group to his label, but I think there’s actually more to the Odd Future story. Its less about the music and more about the future of entrepreneurship.

For those unfamiliar, Odd Future is a collective of hip hop and R&B artists from LA. The collective has somewhere between 12 and 60 recording artists under its umbrella,  but is lead by a 20 year old rapper named Tyler the Creator. Until recently, they have released all of their albums for free from their own website. The music is very graphic and not for the faint of heart.

Let me start by saying right up front that I’m not a fan of Odd Future or their music. The violent imagery, the language, none of it. There I said it. If you want a sanitized version of them, check out their performance on Jimmy Fallon and you’ll see what I mean. That’s as family friendly as they get.

So what does an obscure act on the fringe of pop culture have to do with the future of entrepreneurship?

A few obvious observations:

Odd Future is provocative, polarizing and exclusive. From their clothes, to their lyrics to their onstage antics they are working overtime to get a reaction out of you. Love, hate or fear them, there is no middle ground. They know they aren’t for everyone and they make no apologies for it. Being all things to all people is a sure fire way to be nothing to everybody. In a age and industry of sameness, thinking and being different is a very powerful thing.

Odd Future is their own PR firm. They own their imagery, message and distribution. Through the web they were able to find an audience for themselves. They started by simply uploading tracks and mixes to their website back in 2008. Then the homemade videos started hitting YouTube. Then the Twitter and Tumblr accounts where fans could have consistent and direct access to them. These accounts update daily with streams of video, song clips, images, thoughts. Every follower earned over the course of 3 years has lead to a feeding frenzy of record labels competing to sign them. There’s something powerful to be said for using these channels to transparently and authentically rally an audience around your missions and culture.

Odd Future is current. They don’t wait to make an album every year, they’re consistently putting out tracks and mix tapes across all of their artists. This allows them to incorporate current events and today’s pop culture references into their work. These consistent, light weight releases also provide valuable feedback on the effectiveness of their distribution channels and serve to gauge reaction from their fans. Pretty sure they’ve never heard the term “lean startup” but they are the masters of janky, homemade minimum viable product releases.

Odd Future bootstrapped until they called the shots. Historically, a record deal has been the crowning achievement for musicians. For hip hop artists, getting signed to Bad Boy (Diddy) or Def Jam (formerly Jay Z) was akin to getting funding from KP or Sequoia. But the group shunned any funding from the majors labels in favor of working with an experienced mentor/manager (seed funder?), Christian Clancy.They recorded their music in a friends basement, not a fancy studio. No multi million dollar Hype Williams directed videos for them, they shoot their own on camcorders or cell phones. When they did eventually sign to a label they had all the leverage. As a result they struck and unprecedented distribution deal with Sony that gives them 100% creative and managerial control as well as ownership of past, present and future master versions of their work.

OK, now a few less obvious observations:

Odd Future is fictional. For all of their wild talk and graphic images, these are still just a bunch of wickedly smart but goofy and hyperactive teen agers. Tyler even admits he doesn’t personally do drugs or drink. They are web natives who use the medium to craft a narrative and they leverage these digital tools to draw us in. Facebook built their business by tying individuals and companies to one single identity. This creates a high level of authentication but destroys a level of exploratory self expression. I’d assert that part of the reason Twitter and Tumblr are scaling at such torrid paces is as a reaction to Facebook’s forced single identity. Facebook has educated 700 million users on the power of connectedness but there will be antithetical services to them that will thrive as a result of that newly educated user base.

Odd Future is loosely joined. As a collective they combine and recombine to create continuously evolving sounds and images. Some characters will appear in songs or on albums, others won’t. In the end its about achieving the collectives goal. Looking out over the social movements that have occurred in just the last 12 months it would be tough to ignore the power of technology to enable other types of loosely joined collectives. Watching the Egyptian revolutionaries use of Facebook, Twitter and other services to broadcast their message and organize their efforts was gripping. Watching Anonymous use their collective strength to achieve their goals is often, um, less inspiring. I think we’re at the very front end of this trend but it will have a major impact on global affairs over the next decade.

We’re in a golden age of entrepreneurship. We have the tools to connect, create and distribute ideas, images and ideals. Some will use them to build, others will use them to destroy. Many will use them for good, others will use them for evil. Given how new these technologies are we’re still, generally, focused on the positive impact they will have on the world. But with the rise of unabated self expression and anonymity not all will use them to promote the positive.

Good or bad none of this will happen in a vacum It will happen in the open, on the web and on a global scale. These shifts are lining up to create a truly odd future for all kinds of entrepreneurship. And its just starting to get interesting…