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2. MTV News
Date: March 16, 2011
MTV News managed to spend a few minutes with Frank Ocean in March of 2011, capturing his response to Nostalgia, Ultra's reception during his first recorded interview. He runs through numerous songs from the project that required sample clearances, addressing struggles with The Eagles ("American Wedding") and possible good news from Coldplay ("Strawberry Swing"). A bonus highlight arrives when Tyler, the Creator makes a profanity-filled cameo, dropping f-bombs left and right. Ocean is impossibly cool during the ordeal: "You tell 'em, Tyler. You tell 'em." From the very beginning, it's clear he intends to sidestep the typical lifestyle afforded by fame.
Key quote:
I'm just a perfectionist man... Everything, not just the sonics. I take my time... It really just depends on what the story is.
Watch the clip below.
5. Complex: Who Is Frank Ocean?
Date: March 18, 2011
It's hard to imagine a time when Frank Ocean was the subject of Drake comparisons. Odd Future's sole singer had liberated his debut project and gradually swept across the hip-hop internet. His earliest print moment came a month after Nostalgia, Ultra, when Ocean addressed Beyoncé sessions, Def Jam beginnings, and his songwriting past. The new kid on the block had no shortage of stories to tell.
Key quote:
I had just moved into my dorm at the University of New Orleans, and I was doing laundry, and my mom called me like, 'We’ve got to evacuate. There's a hurricane’s coming.' I was already recording, and that just fucked everything up. Then after the storm, the studio was looted and shit, and I couldn’t record. So I was like, 'Fuck school. I’m out of here. I’ve got to go record.' I got in my car with my girlfriend at the time, and drove out here to L.A., and I never went back.
Read the entire interview here.
6. Passion of the Weiss: Frank Ocean
Date: April 11, 2011
Five years ago, Jeff Weiss wrote about Odd Future for the LA Times. His story birthed an abundance of leftover material, including a Frank Ocean interview the author wisely published elsewhere. Their 2011 conversation still lives on in the archives of Passion of the Weiss. The candid talk wades through an array of topics, from the racist implications behind R&B labeling to the e-mails that turned Ocean's visions into Nostalgia, Ultra. Of the stories shared in this piece, many had been discussed by Frank previously. The details are richer here, however, and the artist's humble start transforms from excerpts or anecdotes into a clearer narrative.
Key quote:
I’m a big God fan and I’m a big fan of love and peace and harmony and all of that classic halfway trite. It’s even cliché to say this, but its true: some of the most cliché shit is some of the most universally true shit. You can lose yourself in a lot of ways, especially in this industry. You can lose yourself to your ego, to desire.
Read the full story here.
7. The FADER: Cruise Control
Date: August 16, 2011 (Fall Fashion Issue)
Former FADER editor-in-chief Matthew Schnipper penned Frank Ocean's first major magazine cover. The profile hit newsstands just six months after the release of Nostalgia, Ultra, and many of the singer-songwriter's mysteries had yet to be unraveled. Here we learned of his love for cars, his past in the music industry, his cinematic ambitions, and much more. Ocean's wish for fans to employ multiple senses while listening to music would only grow more clear with Channel Orange the following summer. Memorable photography and well-chosen words make this feature a freely accessible treasure.
Key quote:
I'm really trying to create this environment around the song that makes the listener feel like they're in this place and they're hearing the story and not only are they hearing it, they're really seeing it.
Read the full interview here.
[caption id="attachment_634393" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
Photo by RJ Shaughnessy for FADER[/caption]
9. Hot 97
Date: September 21, 2011
"Why don't I know much about you, Frank?" Angie Martinez asks to begin her guest's first and only interview on Hot 97. It's a valid question. Of all the topics broached during this 2011 conversation between burgeoning star and legendary radio personality, an artist's livelihood ranks highest in importance.
Ocean promises he doesn't lay low to spark intrigue or curiosity, and while he admits music turned price tags into afterthoughts, he adamantly defends a famous person's right to privacy. The interview aired just over a month after the August drop date of Watch the Throne.
An ironic quote to laugh at in retrospect: "Nah, I have no idea [when Channel Orange is dropping]. I'm serious [Laughs]... I think you can keep the party going a little bit with a little—not making people wait, but just... Put it this way. I just want to make sure the next thing is right, and I don't wanna go on the record and say it's coming out on some phantom date then it never appears."
Key quote:
It doesn't matter. The commentary, all of this bull shit, really... [Laughs] You don't have to live in that. I refuse to believe that. I think you can live totally outside of that.
Listen below.
12. BBC: Sound of 2012
Date: January 10, 2012
Four years ago, BBC hosted a competition to select the Sound of 2012, an artist who could shape the year to come. Frank placed second to frontrunner Michael Kiwanuka, but a video interview compensated for the so-called loss.
The ten-minute sit-down captures Ocean's mentality and progress at a curious point in time, when his respect and popularity were established and growing but certain tangible benefits had not yet been reaped. He admits, for instance, that music only brought him as far as London because illness forced him to cancel his first shows in Paris and Amsterdam. Smiling, excited, and earnest about Odd Future's influence on his career, Ocean opens up here, offering what might be his most powerful explanation of music creation.
Key quote:
When I'm trying to make a song, even the form of it, even the parts that don't have words, it's still really trying to make a photograph out of something you can never see. Materials that aren't visible, but still trying to make a photograph.
Watch the full interview below—perhaps the most thorough video interview that exists with Frank.
15. Wax Poetics: Soul Caliber
Date: February 10, 2012
As the clock's ticked toward the present day, a handful of Frank stories were overshadowed by coverage from major publications with stronger SEO performance. Wax Poetics, a stateside quarterly first published in 2001, has long prided itself for the caliber of acts who grace its magazine, and its Q&A with Ocean is among the very best. You'll discover a number of gems here and here only, such as Frank's recollection of the first rap he ever wrote or memories of Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP.
Key Quote
I’m in everybody’s Kool-Aid, all the producers I work with. Not micromanaging—I like people to be creative and invested if I decide to work with them. But I definitely oversee things and get my hands dirty. Brainstorming things for instrumental arrangements, and obviously composing vocal arrangements alongside whoever I’m with. I keep to a small crew of people... If at three minutes and ten seconds in a song, there needs to be a horn quartet that comes in for seven seconds and never shows up again, that idea is probably coming from me.
Read the full interview here.
16. The Guardian: The Most Talked-About Man In Music
Date: July 20, 2012
Frank Ocean's synonymity with the month of July first began in 2012. Five days before his first studio album debuted to rave reviews, Ocean posted a Tumblr note that quickly turned into one of music's biggest stories. A popular male singer—widely considered to be some variant of an R&B singer, at that—had professed love for another man.
His letter propelled a wave of coverage from traditional outlets and countless think pieces. His album solidified him as one of music's foremost talents. Every publication wanted to speak with Ocean that July, and only one nabbed the story. Guardian's interview touches on choice cuts from Channel Orange ("Crack Rock") and Frank's growing confidence in his work.
Key quote:
I knew that I was writing in a way that people would ask questions. I knew that my star was rising, and I knew that if I waited I would always have somebody that I respected be able to encourage me to wait longer, to not say it 'till who knows when.
Read the full interview here.
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19. Snatch: First Memories of a Young Man Tormented
Date: October 6, 2012
French publication Snatch spoke with Ocean in 2012, and a sliver of copy on the cover redeems its name: icône, or icon, is listed as the singer's profession. At that point, the statement couldn't have rung truer. The photo of Ocean sitting beside an orange-colored typewriter was later used for fake Boys Don't Cry album artwork.
Unfortunately, Snatch's piece is not available online and little is known about its contents. The magazine provided a synopsis of its story, which you'll find below along with the cover.
We have here an extraordinary character. Of late serving as a foil for the extravagance of Kanye and Jay Z, Frank is about to break the boundaries of celebrity. The reason lies with a ‘coming-out’ unseen within the world of hip-hop just as much as with an album which returns a sense of nobility to the letters ‘R,’ ‘N,’ and ‘B.’ Welcome to the world of an unconventional songwriter, glutton for work and victim of the heart.
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22. GQ: Ocean-ography
Date: November 20, 2012
Taking care to ensure Frank Ocean's GQ profile stood out, writer Amy Wallace brought readers where they had never ventured before: a studio session with Pharrell, who jokingly calls Frank a different name–James Taylor—to honor his songwriting chops.
Comedic banter and forum-igniting name drops ("Blue Whale," to be exact) abound. A new Rolex adorns his wrist, wordlessly acknowledging the year Ocean transitioned from crowned newcomer to young star. Wallace temporarily abandons the profile format in favor of a far-reaching Q&A, exploring Frank's inspirations and detailing his relationship with his father. All this to say, Ocean's GQ spread is as bright and informative as any.
Key Quote
I was looking at [songwriting] like an athlete then—like I just wanted to be better than everybody else. I hadn't gone through anything emotionally yet. I had never been in love. I had never been heartbroken. When that happened, that's really what changed everything. That turned me into a real artist. It made the difference between somebody hearing something of mine and being like, 'Wow, this is a fresh approach,' and somebody hearing something and crying, you know?
Read the interview in its entirety here.
23. The New York Times: Frank Ocean Can Fly
Date: February 7, 2013
Frank Ocean's Times profile hit newsstands early in 2013, just days before he'd trump Chris Brown and Miguel to win a Grammy for Best R&B Album.
Jeff Himmelman's piece frames Ocean's achievements and contextualizes his background, filling in the blanks for readers who weren't up to speed. (The author cites comparisons—Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Prince—that are as accurate as they are revealing, translating a wunderkind into language easily grasped by a larger, older readership.)
The profile had its fair share of memorable quotes: Ocean tackles the dynamics of an interview, the importance of self-branding on social media, and his earliest music memories.
Key quote:
Here’s what I think about music and journalism: The most important thing is to just press play. All in all, I just don’t trust journalists—and I don’t think it’s a good practice for me to trust journalists.... I have no delusions about my likability, in every scenario. I know that in order to get things done the way you want them, oftentimes your position will be unpopular.
Read the full piece right here.
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26. BBC Radio 1: Frank Ocean & Zane Lowe
Date: February 19, 2013
From close encounters with the late legend Prince to his favorite color (spoiler: astral blue), Frank Ocean dropped an abundance of new knowledge during his BBC Radio 1 interview with Zane Lowe. The cheerful sit-down—his first aired interview in the United Kingdom—touches plenty of topics. The two talk Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Frank's Grammy performance, and his definition of "chilling" when not recording.
Key Quote:
The people who mean the most to me, art wise, I often times don't want to meet them because I don't want the mystique to just vanish.
Listen to the full interview here.
27. Oyster: Cover Story
Date: September 11, 2013
Not long before Ocean dipped below the grid and went ghost, he spoke with Australian magazine Oyster about the difficult search for perfect pants, selling crack in school, and adoring Harry Potter. The interview remains his last.
Conversation is humorous but honest, reflecting Ocean's playful wit. Director and cinematographer Nabil Elderkin—the genius behind the videos for "Novacane," "Swim Good," and "Pyramids," in addition to pieces for Kanye West, FKA twigs, and others—photographed his collaborator for the story.
Key quote:
I began to realize that if I didn't really begin to focus on the work, I couldn't see any way for me to become who I wanted to become. It just wasn't gonna happen… Instead of wanting to get to a certain level of fame or how much liquid assets I had under my name, it was more like, 'How well can I develop my skill set?' You know? 'How far can I push my creativity?' If I'm gonna do this—if I'm gonna be a singer/songwriter—then OK, I'm a singer/songwriter, but how can I be the best?
Read more of the interview here—the full version sadly isn't available online.
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