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Celeb News: New York Times: "Frank Ocean is creating his own gravity"
Member Since: 1/8/2011
Posts: 27,650
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New York Times: "Frank Ocean is creating his own gravity"
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ON a recent Saturday morning here Frank Ocean was up early, well rested and ready to walk Everest, his Bernese mountain dog, through the up-and-down streets near the modest and modern home he’s been renting near the foot of the Hollywood Hills.
For five and a half years he’s lived in this city, since he drove west from New Orleans with $1,200 in his pocket, spending $400 on the way for gas. In that time he’s become an in-demand songwriter and now a rising star in his own right. With that success has come a roller coaster of love and letdown, and that is why, he said, it’s now time to go. Maybe to New York, or more likely to Toronto, which is more car friendly — outside the house were parked two BMWs, one red and newish and one silver and oldish — and which Mr. Ocean has fallen for based on Google searches, even though he’s never been there.
“When I think about the term ‘running away,’ probably it’s not the right one,” Mr. Ocean said as Everest was sniffing at some greenery. “It’s more I decided to do something different, so that I might have a different outlook.” He added, “When they’re emotional things you can’t run away from them anyway.”
It’s certainly tougher to do so when they’ve been etched into song. “Channel Orange” (Island Def Jam), his beautiful first full-length studio album, will be released this month, and it’s rife with the sting of unrequited love, both on the receiving and inflicting ends. Mr. Ocean, 24, is an extremely unflashy songwriter, avoiding big proclamations and broad brush strokes, instead leaning on conversational gambits and the power of detail. He makes warm, cloudy soul with echoes of Stevie Wonder, Prince and Pharrell Williams that’s almost never about seduction. In Mr. Ocean’s universe, pretty much everyone is broken beyond repair. While clearly part of a robust historical lineage Mr. Ocean is also at the forefront of a larger push-back against the stasis in contemporary R&B, something in evidence in his organic vamps but also in the Weeknd’s narcotized lust and even mainstream dance music hybrids. And Mr. Ocean’s dissents are starting to have wider effect. He’s written for Beyoncé and has collaborated with Jay-Z and Kanye West.
Back in the house he slid into the bench behind the huge slab of wood that serves as the dining room table, while Everest lolled outside in the patio area. His “gloriously painful love life,” as he described it, has left its mark on his songwriting, particularly as he’s made the shift from writing for others to writing for himself. Two particular relationships haunt this album: one in which he was in control, one in which he wasn’t.
“I’m getting away from both,” he said, using his hands to gesture at two imagined people in front of him, explaining his circumstance to the one he’s disappointed: “You’ll say anything to keep me around. I’ll say anything to keep this one around.”
Finding a way to detach, he admitted, is part self-preservation, part strategy, but he knows it’s better for him to make a clean break. He’s tried going cold turkey before. A few months ago on his Tumblr he started a countdown: “Day 1,” “Day 2.” At “Day 7,” he added “It gets easier.”
“Zero contact — that’s what that was,” he said. After “Day 8” the trail went dry.
“I’ve given three and a half years of my life to that situation and situations like it,” he said. On Tuesday night, Mr. Ocean took to his Tumblr to tell the story of his first love, which was with a man. “I don’t have any secrets I need kept any more,” he wrote. (That was too late to include in the print version of this article, which will appear in the Arts & Leisure section on Sunday.)
“I’ve written some great things,” he added. “That’s a gift, but there’s consequences. Yeah, you get this great work, but you suffer. You really, really suffer.”
That’s absolutely clear from “Channel Orange,” which is filled with lovers who tantalize but remain at arm’s length. On “Pyramids,” a long, astral trip of shimmery funk, he laments a woman who gets dressed up for her job at a strip club while the protagonist agonizes at home, unemployed:
I’ll watch you fix your hair
Then put your panties on
In the mirror
Cleopatra
Then your lipstick
Cleopatra
Then your six-inch heels
Cleopatra
She’s headed to the Pyramid
She’s working at the Pyramid tonight
On both “Sweet Life” and “Super Rich Kids” the well-off are presented as both alluring and dangerous. On “Pilot Jones” it’s drugs that create an impregnable wall: “Tonight you came stumbling across my lawn again/I just don’t know why/I keep on trying to keep a grown woman sober.”
When he was young, Mr. Ocean, born Christopher Breaux, would accompany his grandfather to 12-step meetings, where, he said, his grandfather, who had struggled with alcohol, heroin and crack, served as a mentor for other addicts.
“It totally ingrained this fear of addiction and of anything that could cause me to be addicted,” he said — love included.
Mr. Ocean comes from a big family; his mother still lives in New Orleans, and his grandfather took on the role of father figure after Mr. Ocean’s own father disappeared when he was 6. He took to singing and songwriting at a young age, paying for his first studio sessions with money he earned washing cars. His mother wasn’t thrilled, at least in part because his father was “a keyboardist and vocalist that never popped off,” he recalled.
When he was a teenager, Mr. Ocean began to find ways to hide in plain sight. After being booted from a small private school for fighting, among other things, he transferred to a big public high school. “I remember getting there,” he said, “and being so happy to be there ’cause I could disappear.”
That began a theme. Plenty of times things come out in songs that he hasn’t been able to articulate to the people in his life, he said. “I wouldn’t do it all if there wasn’t that catharsis,” he said of songwriting. “It’s definitely an extension of my talk therapy.” Mr. Ocean isn’t quite a stoic, but he moves with a reserve that keeps people at a distance until he feels comfortable, at which point his arms open wide. “I’m extremely compassionate, loving, all of those warm fuzzy things, but the outer shell doesn’t project that all the time,” he said.
In Odd Future, the Los Angeles hip-hop collective, he plays the role of big brother. “He’s what I imagine Rick Rubin’s like, all-wise,” said Earl Sweatshirt, who, after returning from Samoa earlier this year, became close with Mr. Ocean. “He’s the voice of reason.”
As a young songwriter Mr. Ocean was profligate, writing for and with a variety of artists, hoping to establish himself. Songs he wrote were recorded by Brandy and Justin Bieber, among others. “I had to change my circumstance,” he said of the urgency that gripped that part of his life. “The artist in me hates to say that now, but it was about money, it was about access, it was about nice things.”
Songs from this era were collected in “The Lonny Breaux Collection,” an easy-to-find samizdat zip file put together by fans online, the existence of which still makes Mr. Ocean wince a bit. (Many of the songs are reference vocals Mr. Ocean wrote for other singers, and most are unfinished.)
Last year, after languishing on Def Jam, to which he had been signed for some time, he released “Nostalgia, Ultra,” a sumptuous mixtape full of left-field soul, interpolations of notable rock songs and deeply mature songwriting. Aided by his affiliation with Odd Future, it arrived with impact; “Novacane,” a song from that album, even landed in the Billboard Hot 100.
Soon Mr. Ocean was wanted on his own terms. He contributed two hooks to “Watch the Throne”(Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam/Roc Nation), last year’s collaborative album by Jay-Z and Kanye West, and was invited to work with Beyoncé in the studio for a week, resulting in “I Miss You,” which appeared on her latest album, “4” (Columbia).
“She came in and heard the song, and she shed a tear and recorded it,” he recalled, “and I wanted to shed a tear.”
There was also a collaboration with Nas, “No Such Thing as White Jesus,” that was unfortunately lost to a technological mishap. Mr. Ocean expressed regret that album deadlines prevented him from recreating the song from scratch, and he broke into song to capture what was lost:
Whatever you do, young king, don’t wind up dead
Young queen, cross your legs,
Put a crown on your head and remove the chains
’Cause even diamond chains are for slaves,
Don’t set foot in no penitentiary
And don’t taste the poison
Don’t you bail on your families
It’s signature Frank Ocean: dignified, quasi-political, cerebral without being disdainful, fleetingly hopeful. If that bears little resemblance to the center of what’s happening on the radio — the same can certainly be said for the bulk of “Channel Orange” — so be it: Mr. Ocean appears to be creating his own gravity.
“When I did have some success, it further emboldens you to be like, ‘No, I’m just going to write what I feel I should write,’ ” he said. “Channel Orange” is full of such gestures, buffered with warm guitars and keyboards, often with urgent drums clamoring for attention underneath. Large parts of the album were recorded at Eastwest Studio here, in rooms where the Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra recorded, and where some of the equipment remains unchanged.
That furthers the intimacy of this album, as does the spare and judicious use of guests: Earl Sweatshirt, dissolute and tart on “Super Rich Kids”; John Mayer, who briefly adds flair to “White Heat”; and André 3000, whose verses on “Pink Matter” are dryly boastful, and whose offhand splays of guitar outshine Mr. Mayer’s.
There’s also a series of interludes, inspired by television, that stitch the album into a unified whole that, again, Mr. Ocean hopes speaks loudly enough that he can disappear behind it. “The work is the work,” he said. “The work is not me. I like the anonymity that directors can have about their films. Even though it’s my voice, I’m a storyteller.”
Accordingly, his name’s not on the album cover. It appears in the television ads, but he had to be talked into it.
“As a lifestyle you always being the focal point is innately unhealthy,” Mr. Ocean said.
Everest is credited as the album’s executive producer.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/ar...ewanted=1&_r=1
Truly an amazing article. This will appear on this Sunday’s Arts & Leisure section.
I'm not even going to bold any thing. I hope someone at least reads it.
There's another one too:
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A Musician and a Critic Make Some Points About Love - By JON CARAMANICA
On Saturday morning I sat at the dining room table in Frank Ocean's Los Angeles home and, for about three hours, spoke with him about love.
It's the type of thing that, if you've spent time with his music, songs he writes for others and songs he sings himself, you can't help but do. He's one of the sharpest observers of broken, cancerous relationships working in popular music today, usually drawing characters who pine for people they can't have and people who create force fields around themselves to make sure no one gets too close.
Mr. Ocean can be one of these people himself. I'd met him a few times over the past year and a half, and he was always affable but a little distant. During our conversation for the profile that's going to appear on the cover of this Sunday's Arts & Leisure section, though, he was warm and expansive.
Most people loathe divulging details of their personal lives, which makes all sorts of sense. And I don't think a public figure's personal life is inherently off-limits, especially in cases where it so clearly has an impact on the art that gets made. But Mr. Ocean was hyperarticulate about his love life, about a pair of relationships that had been weighing on him. He spoke with the sort of insight and directness you expect from someone you've known for years.
Still, I noticed he was avoiding gender-specific pronouns. Mr. Ocean is studious and precise, making points through things unspoken, so this absence felt notable.
Once during our talk, I caught myself using the word "she" to describe the person in one of his relationships, and Mr. Ocean didn't blink, though he didn't exactly nod in assent either. I filed it away.
Writing the piece, I made a point of avoiding referring to the sex of the people Mr. Ocean had been discussing. It was an instinctual choice. Something about the quiet way Mr. Ocean spoke about love was in fact loud enough to stick with me a couple of days later, as I reviewed the transcript of the conversation and began to write.
When I spoke with him again on the phone, an hour or so before finishing the article Tuesday evening, the issue of whether he'd been avoiding full transparency was still a cloud in my mind, not fully formed. I didn't press the point.
There was, in fact, more. In a letter written on Dec. 27, 2011, and posted to Mr. Ocean's Tumblr Tuesday night, he gave details: "4 summers ago, I met somebody. I was 19. He was too. We spent that summer, and the summer after, together." It goes on from there, a story about passion and confusion and fear and forgiveness. It paralleled one of the relationships we'd talked about, one where he was the one left feeling stung. The additional information in the story was heartbreaking: he'd fallen in love with a man who couldn't reciprocate. "He did his best, but he wouldn't do the same," Mr. Ocean writes of the night when he first confessed his full feelings.
"He had to go back inside soon. It was late and his girlfriend was waiting for him upstairs."
In our interview, Mr. Ocean talked of hiding behind his work, about chasing professional success as a buffer against the frustrations of his romantic life. And in his letter he writes: "I wrote to keep myself busy and sane. I wanted to create worlds that were rosier than mine."
"Channel Orange" (Island Def Jam), his first studio album, which will be released this month, is anything but rosy, though. And there are hints of this particular struggle. Some of the lyrics circulating ahead of the album release suggested that Mr. Ocean was, indeed writing about love for members of either sex.
On "Bad Religion," he appears to spell it out:
This unrequited love
To me it's nothing but a one-man cult
And cyanide in my Styrofoam cup
I could never make him love me
Never make him love me.
In writing about Mr. Ocean and the album, I thought seriously about that and also about the fact that Mr. Ocean tells a great story. There are no rules that say a male songwriter can't write from the perspective of a straight woman, or that all love stories are to be taken literally, or that a man singing about love for a "him" was really doing anything more than delivering a lyric.
But the unchecked and all-too-easy assumption that would have led me to fill in a "she" or a "her," where none was specified - that's something that should be rejected, a society-shaped norm that is in fact a fiction.
It shouldn't be an issue, Mr. Ocean's announcement about his sexual orientation. He knows from broken hearts. That's enough. Let's learn from him.
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http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/20...love/?ref=arts
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Member Since: 4/12/2011
Posts: 4,449
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Damn these were very good articles. 
Quote:
In our interview, Mr. Ocean talked of hiding behind his work, about chasing professional success as a buffer against the frustrations of his romantic life. And in his letter he writes: "I wrote to keep myself busy and sane. I wanted to create worlds that were rosier than mine."
"Channel Orange" (Island Def Jam), his first studio album, which will be released this month, is anything but rosy, though. And there are hints of this particular struggle. Some of the lyrics circulating ahead of the album release suggested that Mr. Ocean was, indeed writing about love for members of either sex.
On "Bad Religion," he appears to spell it out:
This unrequited love
To me it's nothing but a one-man cult
And cyanide in my Styrofoam cup
I could never make him love me
Never make him love me.
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Quote:
was invited to work with Beyoncé in the studio for a week, resulting in “I Miss You,” which appeared on her latest album, “4” (Columbia).
“She came in and heard the song, and she shed a tear and recorded it,” he recalled, “and I wanted to shed a tear.”
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Member Since: 11/16/2010
Posts: 11,962
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Member Since: 12/27/2010
Posts: 6,041
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Gah he's so perfect.
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Member Since: 4/28/2011
Posts: 26,425
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This guy makes me cry. I feel his pain, and his lost love. Man, Channel Orange will be a gamechanger.
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Member Since: 5/15/2012
Posts: 1,202
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“She came in and heard the song, and she shed a tear and recorded it,” he recalled, “and I wanted to shed a tear.”
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Member Since: 12/4/2009
Posts: 6,471
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Member Since: 3/5/2011
Posts: 15,589
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Great read.
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There was also a collaboration with Nas, “No Such Thing as White Jesus,” that was unfortunately lost to a technological mishap. Mr. Ocean expressed regret that album deadlines prevented him from recreating the song from scratch, and he broke into song to capture what was lost....
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Member Since: 8/16/2010
Posts: 15,137
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Originally posted by Damien M
Great read.
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Most anticipated album of the year. 
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Member Since: 2/16/2012
Posts: 6,442
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I'm looking forward to this album.
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Member Since: 6/10/2011
Posts: 12,511
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Quote:
Originally posted by Damien M
Great read.
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NOOOOOOOO!
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Member Since: 2/9/2008
Posts: 32,819
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Member Since: 9/12/2011
Posts: 18,018
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Oh god this man is a genius.
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Member Since: 12/16/2008
Posts: 59,380
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After all this mess he's been thru I'm actually anticipating his album, when does it come out? has it leaked?
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Member Since: 8/7/2010
Posts: 9,646
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He's such a complex individual.
I gravitate towards people like him.
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Member Since: 4/18/2011
Posts: 2,708
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loved the articles ! He seems to be such a talented and pure person !
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Member Since: 5/14/2009
Posts: 34,871
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This is getting bigger than i thought. I never like Novacane,but i love his part on No Church In Tha Wild.
Someone give me a list of all tha good songs he has
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Banned
Member Since: 6/25/2012
Posts: 718
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I'm excited for his album!
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Member Since: 1/8/2011
Posts: 27,650
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Quote:
Originally posted by iLays
This is getting bigger than i thought. I never like Novacane,but i love his part on No Church In Tha Wild.
Someone give me a list of all tha good songs he has
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Start off with this ( http://www.datpiff.com/Frank-Ocean-N...pe.210282.html) then you can work your way back to his other unreleased stuff. 
My favorites off of that: strawberry swing, lovecrimes, there will be tears, swim good, dust, american wedding, nature feels. (I ended up listing almost everything lmao)
And then with the other songs, check thinking about you, back, whip appeal, tears, i miss you (his live version) and of course pyramids.
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Member Since: 6/13/2011
Posts: 11,601
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I have so much respect for him; not only as an artist, but as a human being.
I love both of those articles.
I really hope we get video interviews.
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