Chelsea Borg (’19): Swim Good
The world was ready to love Frank Ocean. Frank Ocean took that as his cue to disappear.
Every hurricane begins as just a cloud over the ocean. Thirteen years ago, one of those clouds became Hurricane Katrina, devastating the Gulf Coast of the United States. The storm broke records, it broke levees, it killed almost 2,000 people.
Twelve years before that hurricane got its name, devastation rained down on a much smaller scale. That moment, in Long Beach, California, was when Calvin Cooksey turned his back on his family. Katonya Breaux and her five year old son, Christopher Breaux, were suddenly alone on the West Coast. Calvin had left without so much as an explanation. Mother and son retreated to her hometown of New Orleans. There, Katonya’s parents would be able to support her and her child.
For the next twelve years, the family deepened their roots in Louisiana. In 2005, Christopher Breaux, now a teenager, moved himself into a dorm at the University of New Orleans. A jazz bar regular and car-washing, lawn-mowing, dog-walking hustler, Christopher was ready to begin his formal education studying music.
Then came Katrina.
Very little was left standing after the storm hit. The studio that Christopher had built in his home was destroyed by floodwater, and looted in the post-storm chaos. Microphones, speakers, keyboards, gone. The loss hit hard– all of Christopher’s recording equipment had been financed by his numerous side-hustles. Suddenly, his ties to New Orleans– his school, his home, his equipment– were swept away with the rest of the city’s debris.
It was the type of setback that could easily sink the hopes of a young, broke artist. But Christopher remained a hustler. Rather than fight to keep afloat in a city underwater, he relocated to dry land. Driving cross-country to Los Angeles with just $1,100 in his pocket, he believed his stay to be temporary. He’d give himself 6 weeks, make as much music as he could, and then return to the South.
The kid who left New Orleans was Christopher Breaux, but the man who arrived in LA was Frank Ocean. He didn’t know it at the time, but he was never turning back. From the flooded streets of Louisiana, Frank had nowhere to go but up.
. . .
I remember Hurricane Katrina as a headline on every newspaper at the grocery store. I remember it as a cause that lots of people donated to. I was nine years old in 2005, comfy in suburban Massachusetts. I knew a very bad storm had happened somewhere far away, but its significance was lost on me.
It was only when I grew a little older that I became aware of the pain and corruption and horror of Katrina. Aware of the hard years it took for the southern states to get back on their feet. And in time, as the stories of New Orleans’ worst tragedy seeped into my consciousness, I would find myself drawn to the artist who began his ascent in the eye of the hurricane.
. . .
Soon after his arrival in California, Frank’s money ran out. In the glow of his spontaneous road trip, Frank had convinced himself that recording an album would be the first step in his journey to success. In reality, he didn’t even have the cash to rent studio time. So one shitty part time job turned into another, the checks allowing him to keep living in California, but not helping him do much else. It wasn’t long until Frank discovered that he could increase his cash flow by writing songs for other artists. He was good, and the names he was writing for got bigger. Names like Justin Bieber, John Legend, and Beyoncé.
“There was a point where I was composing for other people, and it might have been comfy to continue to do that and enjoy that income stream and the anonymity. But that’s not why I moved away from school and away from family,” Ocean would later reveal.
By 2009, Frank was ready to stop being anonymous. That year brought him two major blessings. One was the hip hop collective, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. Led by rapper Tyler, the Creator, the wild, anarchic, skateboarding kids of Odd Future embraced Frank. By joining their ranks, the somber Frank Ocean started to let loose. Odd Future became his California family.
The other blessing may not have been so much of a blessing. Sometimes, a curse can look a whole lot like a blessing when it first shows up. Def Jam Recordings, the label of stars like Rihanna and Jay-Z, offered Frank a contract. For any kid with eyes on musical stardom, signing with a record label seems like a dream in its own right. But not all contracts are created equal. Def Jam didn’t give Frank a recording contract, they gave him a publishing contract. It made all the difference.
. . .
While Frank was on the come up in LA, I was making my way through eighth grade. That was a time partially dedicated to figuring out what kind of music I was into. Crossing the threshold into being an official teenager, I didn’t think listening to Eric Clapton with my mom was cool anymore. But I didn’t think the top 40 radio hits my peers loved were cool either. Mostly, I downloaded whatever playlists people shared on Tumblr, listening to anything and everything to see what would stick.
For a while, what stuck was the vague genre of “indie”, which consisted mainly of white boys with banjos and paper thin voices, whining about manufactured heartbreak. Everyone who I looked up to on the internet seemed to be into that sort of thing, so I decided to be into it too. I beefed up my iTunes library with hundreds of illegally downloaded indie tracks. I knew all of the words.
But, honestly?
Never once did I enjoy an indie song.
. . .
The key difference between a publishing contract and a recording contract is the lack of recording budget. All Frank had ever wanted was to record an album. Def Jam was not interested in forking over any cash to make that happen.
So it’s a good thing that Frank Ocean knows how to hustle.
With virtually no support from his label, Frank put together a mixtape entirely on his own. He called it nostalgia,ULTRA, and dropped it independently in 2011. Odd Future hosted it on their site. The mixtape got an instant reaction, and the world was suddenly made aware of Ocean. His dreamy, trippy, smooth lyrics, and the warmth of his voice brought in widespread acclaim. It was literally genre-defying, as he facetiously labeled the tape as both bluegrass and death metal on iTunes (Frank balked at being called R&B, due to that being the default genre prescribed to most black singers in America). Def Jam was suddenly made aware of Ocean. In fact, when nostalgia,ULTRA was released, the label had no idea that he was already on their roster. Once the oversight was realized, it dawned on Def Jam that they might have valuable talent on their hands.
Frank’s feelings toward his neglectful label were not kind.
“fuck Def Jam & any company that goes the length of signing a kid with dreams & talent w/ no intention of following through. fuck em,” he tweeted.
It takes more than a little foul language to shake off a legally binding contract, however. Eager to reacquaint themselves with their buzzworthy singer/songwriter, Def Jam gave Frank an actual budget for his next project. In 2012, Channel Orange dropped.
. . .
Tucked away in one of the Tumblr-recommended playlists I’d downloaded was a track titled, “Bad Religion”. Channel Orange had been getting enough buzz at that point, that even I had heard of it in my little corner of the internet. The headlines I’d seen were mostly related to a note Frank Ocean had posted online, in which he revealed that the first love of his life was a man. In 2012, this was huge news. I honestly knew nothing else about the artist or the album prior to that moment.
“Bad Religion” was a hell of an intro to Channel Orange. Melancholy organ chords open into the voice of an audibly desperate Ocean, as he pleads for a chance to spill what’s weighing on his heart to his taxi driver. Ocean then compares his torrential love affair to a death cult, all while building the melody into a show-stopping, emotional crescendo as he literally begs for love. “I can never make him love me,” Frank belts as though he has nothing left to lose.
I was 17. I’d never been within arm’s length of a romantic relationship with another human being. But god, “Bad Religion” left me feeling heartbroken. From the first listen, the track absolutely wrecked me. Sure, tons of other guys sang about love and love lost. It was the subject of basically every indie track. But Frank was the first one who seemed to be telling the truth. Beautiful and bare, his voice was pure music and yet always seemed to be a second away from breaking.
Frank’s first studio album was an instant hit. It debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200, with critics tripping over themselves to heap on praise. Playing with the concepts of wealth and its emptiness, love and its loneliness, and various types of addiction, Frank created a collection not just of songs, but stories. Each track seemed to come from a different point of view, weaving tales that sent the listener from the mansions of Ladera Heights to the broken homes of a crack-infested slum. At the Grammy Awards the next year, the soft-spoken young man from New Orleans walked away with the award for Best Urban Contemporary Album.
The world was ready to love Frank Ocean. Frank Ocean took that as his cue to disappear.
. . .
With Channel Orange opening the gate, I was finally starting to listen to music that I genuinely enjoyed. Indie was out, hip hop, R&B, and rap were in. But no matter how many new artists as I added to my library, I couldn’t help myself from returning to Frank’s music. Years ticked by since my initial discovery, and Channel Orange remained my favorite album. Years ticked by, and I waited impatiently for new Frank music that never came.
. . .
Often, Ocean is described as a “recluse”. He avoids paparazzi, red carpets, interviews, television appearances, social media, and general contact with the outside world. After waiting agonizing years for a new project, his fanbase, whenever catching sight of the artist, was known to ask point blank, “Where’s the album, Frank?”
Frank withdrew further, secluding himself to an apartment in London, where he began writing his next album of songs. The public demanded an instant fix for their Frank craving, but he knew there was no rushing art.
. . .
When it had been nearly four years since Channel Orange dropped, Frank began leaving cryptic clues that seemed to hint at a release date for the next album. I got my hopes up as each predicted date came and went. The concept of new Frank music was so intoxicating that I couldn’t give up hope.
The summer of 2016 hit its final month. I was working 40 hours a week and commuting an embarrassing distance for a minimum wage job. My first mini heartbreak, at the beginning of that month, had me walking around gloomy and confused.
At last, Frank Ocean delivered.
I’ll never forget the night I spent in my Aunt and Uncle’s kitchen, glued to my laptop as the video on Frank’s website came to life. Titled Endless, the “visual album” showed a monochromatic industrial setting in which Frank built a staircase, all while a cascade of music played. It was bittersweet; the video would later leave the internet and live the rest of its life behind the paywall of Apple Music, the individual tracks never separately released. But in the moment, I thought it was the album I had been waiting so long for.
48 hours later, I was proven wrong.
. . .
Frank has described the curse of his Def Jam contract as a “seven year chess game”. With the success of Channel Orange, he was able to buy the rights to all of his music, and get himself out of the contract, with one caveat. Def Jam would retain full distribution rights to one more album. And so, Frank tossed the label a bone with Endless, leaving Def Jam with a nearly undistributable video made of musical ends and pieces. Still, it fulfilled his last contractual obligation. Frank was a free man.
Two days later, the real album dropped. This time, no label.
. . .
No one could have predicted Blonde. While Channel Orange was a storytelling masterpiece, Blonde was nothing but the truth. The point of view on every track came from Frank and Frank alone. The lyrics don’t bother with exposition or explanation. Each song is heavy with metaphor and references to events and people that no one but Frank knows about. Listening to the album feels like witnessing someone’s very private thoughts. The whole thing had a kind of wistful sadness to it that made me ache for something I couldn’t understand.
The songs on Blonde border on abstract and experimental, veering away from the polished, catchy sound Frank used to employ. He sings, screams, raps, and talks stream-of-consciousness style. The album brought me to tears.
Blonde seemed to have that effect on a lot of people. The long-awaited release hit number one on the US Billboard 200. It was declared the best album of 2016 by Time Magazine.
Frank Ocean publicly declined to submit the album to the Grammys.
It really surprised no one that Ocean became even more reclusive after the album dropped. Aside from a handful of singles and a couple of festival appearances, he has made himself the hermit of the music world once again.
Which is fine. As long as I get a new album eventually.
“Thinkin ‘Bout You,” Frank Ocean