Quotes by Frank Ocean
Welcome to our collection of quotes by Frank Ocean. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Frank Ocean
Frank Ocean (born October 28, 1987) is an American singer and songwriter. He is recognized for his idiosyncratic musical style, introspective and elliptical songwriting, and wide vocal range. Music critics have credited him with revitalizing jazz and funk influenced R&B, as well as advancing the genre through his experimental approach. He is considered a representative artist of alternative R&B.
Ocean began his musical career as a ghostwriter, prior to joining the hip hop collective Odd Future in 2010. In 2011, Ocean released his critically successful debut mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra and subsequently secured a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings. Drawing on electro-funk, pop-soul, jazz-funk, and psychedelia, Ocean's debut studio album Channel Orange (2012) was one of the most acclaimed albums of 2012. It was nominated for Album of the Year and won Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 2013 Grammy Awards, while the album's hit single "Thinkin Bout You" garnered Ocean a nomination for Record of the Year.
Following a four-year hiatus, Ocean released the visual project Endless in 2016 to fulfill contractual obligations with Def Jam before self-releasing his highly anticipated second album Blonde (2016) a day later. Blonde debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Encompassing experimental, soul, and psychedelic rock, the album was acclaimed by critics and Ocean was praised for challenging the conventions of contemporary R&B and pop music.
Among Ocean's awards are two Grammy Awards, a Brit Award for International Male Solo Artist in 2013 and an NME Award for Best International Male Artist in 2017. He was included in the 2013 edition of the Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world and the 2017 edition of the Forbes 30 Under 30. Two of his studio albums have been listed in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2020). Both Insider and The Wall Street Journal regarded Ocean as the most dominant artist of the 2010s decade.
As a photographer, Ocean worked with Vogue at the annual Met Gala and the British fashion magazine i-D. Premiered in 2017, he also has his own Beats 1 radio show, Blonded Radio, that often premiers his new singles. In August 2021, Ocean announced the launch of Homer, a luxury jewellery company of his own design.
This has always been my life and no one else's, and that's how it's always been since the day I came in it.
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.'
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've always wanted to make a career in the arts, and I think that my only hope at doing that is to make it more about the work.
I believe that I'm one of the best in the world at what I do, and that's all I've ever wanted to be.
I can't usually stomach a project after I finish it, but for those days and weeks and months that it's new to me, I do listen to it, and it might change over time, but it's about function.
I feel like I was writing as I was learning to talk. Writing was always a go-to form of communication. And I knew I could sing from being in tune with the radio.
All the things I didn't mean to say I didn't mean to do There were things you didn't need to say You didn't need to.
If someone breaks your heart just punch them in the face. Seriously. Punch them in the face and go get some ice cream.
I need to know how many records I've sold, how many album equivalents from streaming, which territories are playing my music more than others, because it helps me in conversations about where we're gonna be playing shows or where I might open a retail location, like a pop-up store or something.
You gotta make sure the listener is listening to you, so if you put it into a song, often times, if the song is striking enough, then you can really deliver the story most effectively while keeping the ear of the listener the whole time.
I respect Drake not only as a creative person but as a business mind as well. I think Drake's important.
I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know.
When you write a song like 'Forrest Gump,' the subject can't be androgynous. It requires an unnecessary amount of effort.
The work is the work. 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.
I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.
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.
Super-envious of the fact that Daft Punk can wear robot helmets and be one of the most famous bands in the world, while also understanding that will never be my situation.
With my art, it's the one thing that I know will outlive me and outlive my feelings. It will outlive my depressive seasons.
It started to weigh on me that I was responsible for the moves that had made me successful, but I wasn't reaping the lion's share of the profits, and that was problematic for me.
Sometimes, I want to talk on a song and be angry, because I am angry. Then there's always a part of me that remembers that this record lives past my being angry, and so do I really want to be angry about that? Is that feeling going to have longevity?
I won't touch on risky, because that's subjective. People are just afraid of things too much. Afraid of things that don't necessarily merit fear.
Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story.
The idea of recognizing your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.
It's not essential for me to have a big debut week; it's not essential for me to have big radio records.
Obviously, the cinematography of films is art, just as a still shot can be art. If I'm watching a Wes Anderson movie, the colour palettes alone, and the way they're painted, could be art. With music, you're a little bit limited, of course, because it's only audio.
How we experience memory sometimes, it's not linear. We're not telling the stories to ourselves. We know the story; we're just seeing it in flashes overlaid.
I'm extremely compassionate, loving, all of those warm fuzzy things, but the outer shell doesn't project that all the time.
People are just afraid of things too much … Sure, evil exists, extremism exists. Somebody could commit a hate crime and hurt me. But they could do the same just because I'm black. They could do the same just because I'm American.
I feel like I was writing as I was learning to talk. Writing was always a go-to form of communication.
It's about the stories. If I write 14 stories that I love, then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story and all kinds of sonic goodness.
It's more interesting for me to figure out how to be superior in areas where I'm naive, where I'm a novice.
What do you think my brain is made for?
Is it just a container for the mind?
This great grey matter,
Sensei replied what is your woman,
Is she just a container for the child?
That soft pink matter.
I've written some great things. That's a gift, but there's consequences. Yeah, you get this great work, but you suffer. You really, really suffer.
In the studio, we adhere to a strict colour code. Developed over decades, the colour code consists of a finite and precise colour palate... The whole world as we experience it comes to us through the mystic realm of colour.
When I was growing up, there was nobody in my family -- not even my mother -- who I could look to and be like, 'I know you've never said anything homophobic.' So, you know, you worry about people in the business who you've heard talk that way. Some of my heroes coming up talk recklessly like that.
It's about the stories. If I write 14 stories that I love, then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story, and all kinds of sonic goodness -- sonic goodies.
I wrote 'Channel Orange' in two weeks. The end product wasn't always that gritty, real-life depiction of the real struggle that happened.
I grew up in New Orleans. 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.'
Don't ever play with someone's feelings, you could win the game but you could lose that person forever.
I think we all change each other's paths. I don't know which law idea that is in physics, but I don't think any of us can live without affecting one another.
If someone breaks your heart, just punch them in the face. Seriously. Punch them in the face and go get some ice cream.
Don't confuse my personality with my attitude. My personality is who I am, and my attitude depends on who you are.
Don't feel sad over someone who gave up on you, feel sorry for them because they gave up on someone who would have never given up on them.
As long as your intentions are solid and about growth and progression and being productive and not being idle, then you're doing good in my book.
We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I'm going to be alive, I want to be challenged -- to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn't an easy way, but it's a rewarding way.
As a writer, as a creator, I'm giving you my experiences. But just take what I give you. You ain't got to pry beyond that.
I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.
The first four and a half years was me in the studio every day, writing songs for other people. I had jobs, too -- eleven jobs. I worked at Kinko's, Fatburger, Subway -- I was a sandwich artist -- and I was a claims processor at Allstate Insurance.
The idea of recognising your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.
We were poor. But my mom never accepted that. She worked hard to become a residential contractor -- got her master's with honors at the University of New Orleans. I used to go to every class with her. Her father was my paternal figure.
A friend of mine jokes that I have a painstaking royalty complex. Like maybe I was a duke in a past life.
In art, at a certain level, there is no 'better than.' It's just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
In art, at a certain level, there is no 'better than.' It's just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it. Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.
My grandfather was smart and had a whole lot of pride. He didn't speak a terrible amount, but you could tell there was a ton on his mind -- like a quiet acceptance of how life had turned out.
I don't ever want to be caught up in a system of thinking I can do one thing 'cos that's just... that's just telling yourself a lie.
