New York Times Magazine: "Frank Ocean Can Fly"

(Via NYTimes Magazine)

"...Before “Channel Orange” was released in July, Ocean was something of a sleeper in the hip-hop and R.&B. worlds. Some people had heard the free mixtape, “Nostalgia, Ultra,” that he released online in 2011, or they knew of him through his affiliation with Odd Future, a loosely connected and somewhat anarchic group of rappers in Los Angeles that Ocean joined in 2010. Others had heard of him because he contributed vocal hooks to two tracks on “Watch the Throne,” the much-anticipated collaboration between Jay-Z and Kanye West that was one of the biggest-selling records of 2011. Ocean’s is the first voice you hear on “Watch the Throne” — a platinum vote of confidence, given the artists whose names are on the cover.
In the wee hours of July 4 last year, several days before the release of “Channel Orange,” Ocean took to his Tumblr site — his main point of contact with his fans — and released a document that appeared to be the acknowledgments section of the liner notes for the forthcoming record. “4 summers ago, I met somebody,” he wrote. “I was 19 years old. He was too.” The two-paragraph message was a product of a sensitive mind and a still-broken heart. “By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant. It was hopeless. There was no escaping, no negotiating with the feeling, no choice. It was my first love. It changed my life,” he wrote. “Imagine being thrown from a plane.”

The media took the message to be an outright profession of homosexuality, though Ocean has been reluctant to label himself. In an interview with GQ magazine last December, he said, “In black music, we’ve got so many leaps and bounds to make with acceptance and tolerance.” Many of the biggest figures in hip-hop, like Russell Simmons (the founder of Def Jam) and Jay-Z, voiced their support. Others, like the rapper 50 Cent, were supportive but suspected that there was more to the admission than the unburdening of a secret. “You can call it brave or you can call it marketing,” he told MTV, “because it was intentional. It wasn’t an accident.”
Read more here