A mesmerizing short beauty film, shot by photographer Simon Emmett for Wonderland’s April “Reality” issue.

To a haunting soundtrack we get a whipstop tour of the latest, screaming shades from Dior beauty. Makeup is courtesy of Maxine Leonard, Wonderland’s Beauty Editor.

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Obscene. Outrageous. Hilarious. Radical. Idealistic. Rebellious. Ridiculous. Dumb. Brilliant. Tyler, The Creator, and his band, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, defy definition. Their apoplectic expressiveness has seen them compared to everything from the rabble-rousing Wu Tang Clan to the ski-masked Slipknot, while their multiple personalities bring to mind the sadistic similes of Slim Shady and the punk ethos of The Sex Pistols. Lyrically, nothing is off-limits to Tyler and his LA bandmates; rape, death, white supremacy, genocide and serial killers are as nonchalantly treated as orange juice and sandwiches. As shocking as they are comical, this self-contained unit of teenage skaters who rap, write and self-produce, create their own artwork and make their own videos, are the most exciting movement Hip-Hop has seen in, well, forever. And at the forefront stands Tyler, a 20-year-old who could be about to make the biggest impression on popular culture since Kanye West created The College Dropout. Wonderland meets Tyler, The Creator, in Austin, Texas.

Thrasher Magazine Death Match Day Party, The Scoot Inn, 1308 East 4th Street, Austin
There’s at least one broken nose, four icepacks and a couple of pints of blood bobbing about the Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA) performance for skate mag, Thrasher. Dressed in a rainbow tie-dye tee, American Apparel socks, blue Vans and a khaki Supreme cap, he surveys the scene elatedly and peels his lips back in a grin. Then he hurls himself feet first into the thronging, screaming mass below him.

The Garden, 1906 Belford dr, Austin
“Hi, I’m Jeffrey,” says Tyler, the Creator, née Tyler Okonma, by way of introduction. Two minutes later, he’s no longer Jeffrey, but he’s not quite ready to be Tyler, either. There’s nothing ordinary about Tyler. When he did sign to a record label, it was to UK indie XL. “They have awesome artists; Giggs, the XX, M.I.A., it’s all the weirdos. I don’t like the word ‘weird’ cos I used to be called that, but it’s all the weirdos in one place, getting out to the rest of the weirdos in the world, so it’s all cool.”

His debut single, “Yonkers” and the accompanying video, which sees him eating a cockroach, throwing up and then hanging from a noose (he directed it himself), has already clocked up over 5,000,000 views on YouTube. Now Tyler’s got recording sessions with Pharrell Williams in the bag and a new fan in the form of Justin Bieber (“He’s tight, he’s chill”). It won’t be long before Tyler and his comma are unavoidable. Yet, despite the celebrity fans and high profile appearances, there’s little fear that Tyler will suddenly stop rapping about wanting to stab Bruno Mars in the oesophagus or blowing up B.o.B’s plane. His, and Odd Future’s, provocative lyrics have prompted, inevitably, condemnation from the more conservative, leading some to mis-label and, he says, mis-interpret what it is that they do.

He has a legion of followers, thanks to his debut album Bastard and its ruminations on ass rape and OxyContin. The follow up, Goblin, he says is a “part two” of sorts to Bastard – the pair will only make sense together. Given the intensity of his lyrics, what’s his frame of mind when it comes to creating?

As a self-confessed non-drinker and smoker (“I’m straight-edge”), how does he create tracks like “Assmilk” and “Blow”? What comes first? The words or the music?
I don’t know, cos I don’t like writing to beats. Every song to me is like a movie, so if I make a beat it will be the soundtrack to a scene in a movie. So ideas will get thrown around in my head, and I’ll go home or just be skating down the street with no music on, just writing it in my head. Or sometimes I just write shit. I’ll find a word and write shit from that word and then make a beat.

So you don’t want to stab Bruno Mars?
I do want to stab Bruno Mars [laughs]. Well, I don’t want to stab him but I just hate the music that’s being made right now. Pop music is annoying. It all sounds the same with the dumb-ass hooks and the girl singing some motivational shit and the shitty breakbeat drums with the guitar doing the same fucking chord progression. It just fucking sucks.

Why is it hard to be yourself these days?
I don’t know. I guess it’s opinions, people don’t know how to accept things anymore. People don’t know you’re human. It’s just opinions and once you get past giving a fuck, you’re good. I’m enjoying life right now. I met my idol last week, Pharrell Williams.

At 12, after watching a Neptunes bonus DVD where Pharrell played “Thrasher” on the piano, Tyler taught himself keyboards. He also plays drums and would like to take up saxophone. “When I get older though. That shit’s a fucking bitch to learn, but I think when I’m older I’m going to be able to play that shit and have jam jazz sessions.”

Though he hates a lot of rap now, he remains a firm fan of Wacka Flocka Flame and Eminem. He’s been frequently compared to the latter, thanks to his sadistic pop culture references and Shady-esqe alter-ego Wolf Haley. “I’m still listening to Relapse,” he points out. “A lot of people hated that CD, but they didn’t look past the genius of it, they just looked at the accent that was annoying them. I never heard no shit as genius as the wordplay on that album. That shit made me listen to my shit like I fucking suck. I respect Eminem, he’s in a whole different mindset.”

With ambitions to “Win Grammys and VMAs”, can Tyler retain his oddball status as the king of the outsiders? “I stand up; I be what I want,” he insists. “Most people want to do what they want, but they’re kinda not allowed to, so I’m their escape to say shit they wish they could say. I’m not the only person in the world doing this, but I guess I’m one of the youngest right now to not care about other people. I just do what makes me happy.”

Photography: Matt Irwin
Words: Hattie Collins

A full version of this article first appeared in Wonderland Issue 26, April/May 2011

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In 2007’s Bigga Than Ben, Ben Barnes played an immoral Muscovite named Cobakka, who descends on modern-day London with his Russian pal to make a fortune from scams and deceit. Not a film to set the world alight, but a sly comedy none the less, and one that featured an edgy, whip-smart turn from Barnes – his hair is sheared short, not a frock coat or broadsword in sight… It’s a shame that hardly a soul witnessed Barnes’s debut starring role, otherwise he might have avoided the floppy-haired romantic typecasting that trailed his anointment as the swoony royal at the heart of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and its follow-up, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

“I still get lots of offers to play royalty and [for] films with swords in them,” sighs the lifetime Londoner. “The industry loves to pigeonhole you, and most actors do everything they can to not have that happen, so I say, ‘No, I want to do something with a gun …’”

Barnes’ latest, Killing Bono was just the ticket. It may be the project that finally shatters the “period-stud” glass ceiling looming over Barnes’s newly-shorn head. Adapted from Daily Telegraph music critic Neil McCormick’s autobiographical tome I Was Bono’s Doppleganger, the film is a knockabout comedy about what it’s like watching your school mate launch the world-conquering, anthem-belting band U2 while trying to become a rock star yourself – and failing abysmally.
“I like to pretend to people that I’m cool even if I’m not,” chuckles Barnes, tucking into a plate of spaghetti bolognese in a quiet corner of Rankin’s Kentish Town studio before getting down to the Wonderland photo shoot. “In Killing Bono, you’ll realise what an idiot I truly am.” He says this with such gusto, you can tell it’s sweet music to Barnes’s ears that movie audiences will finally get to experience him in another light – as a “complete fuck-up who can’t get out of his own way”.
The actor felt well suited to the role. McCormick’s book was adapted by Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais, who also scripted one of his favourite films, The Commitments, “about white boys trying to sing soul, which was completely me when I was growing up. I wanted to be Stevie Wonder when I was 16 and it clearly was never going to happen.” Like McCormick, it didn’t stop him trying and served him in good stead when it came to portraying a desperate wannabe who hops aboard every musical trend of the era trying to crack open fame’s door, with Barnes mimicking the on-stage styles of Bowie, Jagger (“intense eyes and flappy arms”) and the “weird dancing” of the New Romantics.

“He basically gets more and more irritating,” says the actor, who went directly from Dawn Treader’s Australian set into Killing Bono and admits that segueing from a mega-fantasy franchise into someone’s real-life story was “weird … but brilliant.

“I was so ready to do the opposite of what I’d just been doing. It’s just a change of mood you want … After Bono, I was clearly looking for something heavy because I spent six months in the West End doing Birdsong – grim, depressing World War One… After that I weighed nothing, I was grey – it ripped me apart.”

The son of a psychotherapist mother and psychiatrist professor father, the raven-haired actor grew up in Wimbledon and fell in love with music, acting, singing and playing drums in various jazz, rock and soul bands in his teens before taking a brief, ignominious stab at pop stardom. His stint in the short-lived band Hyrise, longlisted as the UK’s Eurovision entry in 2004, still raises a grimace. “That definitely put me off [pursuing a music career],” Barnes groans. “Not so much at the time – I’ just saw it as something fun to take part in. It was very short – literally, we performed that song two or three times and it was over.” Thanks to YouTube and Barnes’s burgeoning film career, however, it’s seeped permanently into the pop-culture ether. “I don’t resent that but I’m not too proud of it because boy bands will never be cool.”

With his 30th birthday looming, Barnes still shares a flat with his brother in south-west London, just round the corner from their parents. “When I come back from other countries, I want to be around things that feel like home,” he explains. One thing that never changes is how he keeps most of his personal life very private.
The Narnia franchise might be over for Barnes (Caspian doesn’t appear as a young man in further adventures), and he’s currently hanging out in LA. What comes next, however, is unpredictable. And that’s fine for Barnes.“I rely on this job to give me spontaneity in my life. I’m not an adventurer. I rely on this job to make me cool …”

Photography: Rankin
Words: Matt Mueller

This article first appeared in Wonderland #26, April/May 2011

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Stacey was an easy-to-love character, both on The X Factor, where she was self-deprecating, upbeat and sang power ballads in floor-length gowns; and on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, where she got regularly covered in cockroaches and made an unlikely new BFF in Madchester survivor Shaun Ryder.

There was the heart-warming back-story, too: Stacey is a single mum (although she’s been going out with her decorator boyfriend Aaronfor over a year now); she had a job in a fish and chip shop called “Oh My Cod”; her life’s dream was to buy a house for her and son Zach. Although she lost out in The X Factor to Joe McElderry, Stacey’s good-natured and surprisingly wise attitude in the outback won her plenty more fans. She was crowned Queen of the Jungle, and is making the most of the attention with an autobiography coming out in May, a freshly inked album deal with Warner Brothers, and a TV presenting gig for a charity singing contest lined up alongside Vernon Kaye. Oh yes, she’s also the new Iceland mum.

Has fame changed you?
Me? Nah. My job’s different, but nothing else is.

Who’s the best celeb you’ve met?
I met Bob Hoskins which was massive, because he’s Smee from Hook and that was one of the best films ever made! And I met the man who drew the characters for Aladdin – I was in awe. I love Disney so much, it’s the best. Not because I’m a cheesy over-excited weirdo, but because I just think that it’s so clever, and it’s happy. It’s the nicest thing to grow up seeing happy endings all the time.

Is that your secret to being so cheerful?
I don’t get why some people are constantly miserable. I’m so happy that I’m alive, I don’t really care about anything else.

And you must have nothing left to be afraid of, after I’m A Celebrity.
My only fear is dying. There’s so much I want to do.

Who’s your TV idol?
Who I’d like to be like? I don’t know, I try and be whatever I am. I think that genuine people are easy to see. I’m always honest, and I’m not interested in bitching.

What’s the closest you’ve come to throwing a diva strop?
Nothing means that much to me that I’ll get nasty.

Max Clifford does your PR work, is he not pushing you to get some fake celebrity boyfriend?
No! No one can tell me what to do, ever.

What are you singing in the shower these days?
I love Kate Nash, Jamie T, Two Door Cinema Club. I’m not really a chart music person, I like bands like Mumford and Sons. I’d love to do a duet with Coldplay.

That’s funny, people associate you with ballads and pop songs.
Yeah, because that’s the show that you’re on, you have to sing that kind of thing. There’s no getting away from it.

Will your album be quirkier?
Well, not too quirky or it won’t be played on the radio, so you have to find a happy medium. You know that iPod advert? [Sings a line from Feist’s “1234”] I love things like that.

Will there be any covers on there?
Not on the first album. I don’t feel like I can cover people’s songs because I’m no one. I haven’t even had my own songs, so who am I to sing someone else’s?

Do you ever meet up with Shaun Ryder for a pint?
I haven’t seen him in ages actually. He does ring and texts and keeps in touch. He leaves really funny messages, swears a lot.

Have you always been confident?
I’ve just never cared. I’ve got a Jewish nose and big hips, I’m not perfect but I’m happy.

Are you sick of any of those ballads that you had to sing over and over again?
Yeah, I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve sung “Who Wants to Live Forever”, God!

When you sing it’s like this hidden side of you comes out, that’s more passionate and serious.
I think I’m very serious, but I don’t take life too seriously. People misconceive it as being not so serious or not so clever.

You must be ambitious too.
Yeah but one minute you’re here, the next you’re not. You have everything, then you have nothing. If I took everything too seriously I’d go mental.

Photography: Amarpaul Kalirai
Words: Jess Holland

A full version of this article first appeared in Wonderland #26, April/May 2011

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