MellowHigh, an extension of Odd Future's MellowHype (Left Brain and Hodgy Beats), will take over the Waiting Room tonight, on tour for their self-titled debut album MellowHigh.

Read my exclusive buffaBLOG interview here, and peak inside the mind of the MellowHigh fellas, the wolfs from the gang: Hodgy Beats, Left Brain and Domo Genesis. Here are some quote snippets from the interview.

Left Brain on why he loves music: "Because, it makes me move, my body. I want to move my body. I don't know anything else, I want to move my body. It's a source of energy. When music turns on, people start moving. When you turn the light on, the fucking room is bright. It's like a source of energy. And I like it."

Domo on the OFWGKTA bond: "These are just my friends. These really are my friends, you know what I'm saying? Before we did music or anything we were all just hanging out, so it didn't really mean much more than just a normal friendship. These are the things we do. When it comes to money and distribution and stuff like that, we're gonna do it all fair and easy because these are my homies. We have stuff, but we all come together. And be like, 'yo, you guys are tripping.' We're homies and we're gonna stay that way."

Hodgy on MellowHigh: "There's like a chemistry or something in the air, and it just worked out. We all know each other."

Their story says it all, need I say more?



After Dark Entertainment presents the event. Opening the night will be performances from two local acts: Network and Koolie High.

Network, comprised by Derek Sullivan and Quinton Brock, set themselves apart by bringing an electronic instrumental vibe to their tunes. The duo has opened for names like Pusha T and Wale. Their EP Wake Up was released on Oct. 31 this year, and is available for pure listening and free download on their Bandcamp page.


Gaines and ToneyBoi lead the KooLiE HiGH gang. While youthful high schoolers they signed to Nickel City Records. Since, the "Krew" has grown, and includes Skateboard MctwistUp, Mr. H-n-F, XtraFresh, M.A.R., TeaPot, Alize' and more. Their motto is to "Live Life Be KooL," cooling out and twisting up. Verses and beats of theirs can be found scattered on SoundCloud, YouTube and one of my all-time favorite go-to websites, DatPiff.

Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All is a Los Angeles based collective of 20-somethings who have made music their hustle with a focus on friendship, many of them often with a blunt in hand. Crafted by rapper and multi-talented artist Tyler, The Creator, Odd Future is a growing organism; there is no definitive line for the crew's success and exploration. "It's been alive for like, 17 years," said OF member Hodgy Beats. "Tyler made it up when he was five, and it became official around high school." MellowHype is a duo project started by members Left Brain and Hodgy Beats. Domo Genesis joined the mix, and on Oct. 31, they released their debut album as MellowHigh.

Domo Genesis

"We made a couple songs, just me, Hodgy and Left on them. We were like, yo these are sick ... everybody else agreed," Domo said. "We had a little home studio so we started hanging out more, said you know what, we should just do a project, and started fucking with it." The self-titled album MellowHigh was supposed to be released as a mixtape, but turned album after receiving positive feedback, according to Domo.

"Well, I got trouble on my mind but no emotions on my sleeve,  

I heard that love'll get you killed, so who gone show some love for me?

Fucking never need it, push against the grain until my fingers bleeding. 

Smoking weed and tweaking trying to figure out a deeper meaning." 

He said the song is nearly two years old, the second oldest track on the album, next to "Nobody." He said this was a track to show the complexity of their writing. "It's something that we made, and we liked. We gotta put this on something and we finally had an album to drop it."

Mixing personal and business has every potential to backfire, but the crew seems to have it figured out. "These are just my friends. These really are my friends, you know what I'm saying?" Domo said. "Before we did music or anything we were all just hanging out, so it didn't really mean much more than just a normal friendship. These are the things we do. When it comes to money and distribution and stuff like that, we're gonna do it all fair and easy because these are my homies." When tensity comes in, they remember their bond. "We have stuff," he said. "But we all come together. And be like, 'yo, you guys are tripping.' We're homies and we're gonna stay that way."

The interview with Domo, Hodgy Beats and Left Brain clearly shows they take their business serious, but with trolls, jokes and sincere conversation, it's undeniable these guys know how to be good friends and live lightly. The phone was then passed to Hodgy, who proceeded to tell me I sounded like I like Sour Patch Kids. "I love Sour Patch Kids," I said. "You must be cool," he responded. After he asked me about which was my favorite color (I said green) he said "Aight, yeah the green and red are the best kind."

Hodgy Beats

One of the first members, from Trenton, N.J. and only 23 years old, I asked Hodgy if he ever saw himself getting to this level of fame. "Shit, I don't know what level of fame or anything I'm on. I try to keep it as normal as possible."

"There's like a chemistry or something in the air, and it just worked out. We all know each other," Hodgy said, and that he's excited to see what comes next for MellowHigh and the rest of the Wolf Gang. "I think me and Tyler are gonna work together a little bit more ... see what comes from that. Everybody works together, it's just hard to find time nowadays because people are busy."

As I heard him tell someone passing out food on the bus "the no tomato's is mine," I asked him what it's like being on tour. "It's awesome. There's not that many people at all. All the attention is on MellowHigh." For this tour, the select city's promoters arrange for the show openers. "Mhm, we have them niggas do it," Hodgy said. For future record tours, they plan on picking their own.

"Why do you love music?"
"I think it's because I've been around it for so long. My dad used to make music, some members in my family used to sing. So it's what I've gravitated towards," Hodgy said.

Odd Future has become much more than just music. In addition to record releases, cities have been hit with Odd Future Sweatshop pop-up stores, the crew gets weird in their show Loiter Squad on Adult Swim, has been featured at The Berrics for the entertaining Text Yoself Beefo Yo Wreck Yoself, ghost ride the whip for the Bay Area influenced "Hyphy" video, and apparently has an upcoming film release in the works, and that's just scratching the surface of their grind.


With a voice deeper than hell, Left Brain spoke to me last. He was playing Call of Duty: Ghosts as we talked about how he came into OF.

"Well, I had no friends," he said, as either Domo or Hodgy laughed in the background. "And we just became friends, since like, 2006."

Since the album dropped, he said he's not sure how the sales are but that the tour is doing pretty well. The best show, in his opinion, was the first show in Dallas, Texas. "There was a lot of people, it was a sold out show. It was turnt up, I was really surprised because the album wasn't out when we went and did that show ... and people still came out."

Left Brain

I asked him if he ever saw himself getting to their current level.
"Yeah, I did. Yeah I did. I know who I am. I know, who I am. People know who I am. We were on this level at first, then we bumped up to the next level. Now we've got our album. It's just levels. You can't really go down in the levels. You go down, you're moving backwards."

Left Brain had an unmovable certainty with his words. "We just wanted to know, to be out here in the industry a little bit. We got our own label, we our own bosses, so tryna get out in the industry, and just fucking take over. There's a lot of names that's hot right now, they're not bosses though. They're just working under people and shit. We doing our own thing, working your own business, tryna establish our own business, make our own money."

"Slow motion's better than no motion," he said.

"Why do you love music?"
"Because, it makes me move, my body. I want to move my body. I don't know anything else, I want to move my body. It's a source of energy. When music turns on, people start moving. When you turn the light on, the fucking room is bright. It's like a source of energy. And I like it."

I heard one of the guys yell in the background "I'm going in on this burrito" and Left Brain abruptly hung up after trolling that they were headed to Nevada and said "What is there to do out there in Reno, Nevada. I hope something out here is fun, we've never been out here. Pretty random."

MellowHigh will make a tour stop in Buffalo at The Waiting Room on Saturday, Dec. 7 presented by After Dark Entertainment. Odd Future was here last September and Tyler, The Creator soon followed in March. "Buffalo, N.Y.? Yeah I was there, it was so cold," Hodgy said. "As long as I'm not freezing my ass off, we're gonna have a great show."

Domo, Hodgy and Left Brain: if you thought that was cold, get ready for a December night in Buffalo.

Tyler, The Creator, Hodgy Beats, Domo Genesis & Earl Sweatshirt - "Look"

I'll stop writing about them when they stop rapping like this. On three, everyone say who they think has the best verse.

Act like you ain't know it's Earl.



Schoolboy Q - "Banger (MOSHPIT)"

I wish Sample Clearance Issues was an actual person so someone could run a drive-by on this dude. He'd be smugly strolling out of some rich asshole restaurant with a three million dollar wine cellar like he owned the whole block. And you just know he ordered his steak well-done. The valet would be all, "Here's your Maybach, Mr. Issues," and then Q (or Q's homie, more likely) would roll up in a late-model Cadillac (like they did Pac) and just light that whole shit up.

Confident the job was done, Schoolboy would come over to my house with a factory sealed copy of Oxymoron and we would take drugs and stay up all night listening to it while he slept with my girlfriend and I listened to it alone with no drugs at all.

Oxymoron still has no release date. Have this instead.



Pusha T ft. Kendrick Lamar - "Nosetalgia"

Apt title for a track by a dude who absolutely can't stop talking about selling that powder. But here we have entered the dangerous waters of Best New Music territory. We've got two emcees on top of their shit reminiscing about the way their lives were touched by drugs in extremely different ways. It's just goddamn fantastic to see Pusha's glamorization of the life juxtaposed with Kendrick watching his family members sink into addiction.

The music video itself is a hell of a thing, a minimalist evening stroll through a black and white Compton. If you pick one track to put on your playlist today, this is the one.

And, hey, Kendrick Lamar! Every song he's featured on since "Control" has felt like the next leg of his victory parade which I expect to continue all the way up until Thanksgiving Day when he hijacks the Sesame Street float and goes in on Big Bird for being soft as hell.

Odd Future member Domo Genesis has always been somewhat overlooked coming from the Los Angeles collective that has produced Frank Ocean, Tyler, The Creator, and Earl Sweatshirt. On the MC's latest track, "Table Tennis", Chicago producer Thelonious Martin lays down a smooth soul sample that drives the song forward while Domo delivers passionate lines about being slept on by the hip hop community and staying focused in his vision for success. The rapper's laid-back, stoner rap style is put aside as he brings unprecedented intensity to the track, the result of which is a fiery flow that serves as a reminder of why he and the rest of Odd Future caught our attention in the first place.