Tyler, the Creator Arrested at SXSW

Tyler, the Creator has been known to offer some fightin' words in his time. His oft inflammatory Twitter feed aside, the imperative yell-along chorus from his Goblins track "Radicals" — "Kill people, burn shit, fuck school!" — is not, say, the stuff of crochet circles. Of course, that song came prepackaged with its own "random disclaimer" preamble: "Don't do anything that I say in this song, okay? It's fucking fiction. If anything happens, don't blame me, white America." Would that there had been such a disclaimer handy this past Thursday, when Tyler, the Creator was arrested for "inciting a riot," a Class A misdemeanor that carries up to a $4,000 fine and a year of jail time.

During his performance at SXSW's "Thrasher Converse Death Match," the Odd Future frontman reportedly encouraged a crowd stuck outside his at-capacity show at Austin's Scoot Inn to, well, scoot in regardless, shouting "All y'all outside the gates, y'all push through," according to local news station KXAN. Apparently, they did just that — and though the singer did apologize to the venue's employees from the stage (amid his continued encouragements to fans), the ensuing commotion left one employee punched in the face and another sheltering a woman who would otherwise have been trampled by the crowd. KXAN posted footage of fans rushing the gate:

The rapper was arrested at the airport on Saturday morning, on his way to Dallas to play a sold-out show at the House of Blues — a show he still made it to, if a little late, after posting a $25,000 bond. And judging by his Twitter at least, the arrest didn't seem to faze him all that much:

Indeed, just a few weeks ago, Tyler and his group were denied travel visas to New Zealand to perform at Eminem's Rapture festival, because, according to the Associated Press, immigration officials believed Odd Future constitutes a "potential public threat," citing "past performances in which they have incited violence." If Tyler's SXSW antics are anything to go by, it appears that they may not have been too far off — that wall-to-wall, danger-laced mayhem is perfectly plausible at an Odd Future show, if not the mark of a job well done.