The original idea of the gangster thing, whether you're talking about Wu Tang or NWA or anyone else, was to document a life the artists were (supposedly, though not actually) living - though other black youth were even if they weren't.
In the case of Wu Tang, it was processing racial disadvantage by romanticising it via the tropes of HK cinema. With NWA they set themselves up as Panther-like adversaries of the racist police force. Either way the emotional pitch was that of the tragic hero, coming up hard and dying hard.
Even Eminem's most controversial lyrics (e.g. on "Kill You") were mostly about troubles he had in his own life with his real mother and girlfriend.
The thing that bugs me about Odd Future who are pretty much just a darker, less real, and more controversial version of Eminem content wise, is it's seemingly a fairly pure fantasy and it's an extreme and unpleasant fantasy. "Rape sluts" etc., I mean give me a break. Not that it's any worse than the ubiquituous violent porn on the net.
The theme of callous violence invites you into a storyline from which they know, and you know you can probably remain emotionally detached, because it's basically, in some sense, a big ironic joke. But the consequences if a male listener really does get embedded in the fantasy are pretty unpleasant for the women in his life.
