Frank Ocean GQ Man Of The Year Interview

Yes, he made the album of 2012
(Just ask him
He'll tell you) But that was just the
Second biggest moment of Frank Ocean's year
Here, while wearing the sport
Coats of the season
And surrounded by his whole Odd Future crew
The ascendant singer opens up to
Amy Wallace about his crazy
Year including the bomb he dropped
On the hip-hop world

If Frank Ocean wanted to play you a song
You'd drive across town in
The pouring rain, right? That's how we've
Ended up at Jungle City, a sound
Studio in Manhattan's Chelsea
Neighborhood when we
Walk in, Ocean leading the way, pharrell
Williams turns down the music and greets
Him warmly "Here you are
" the prolific rapper and producer tells him
"You've walked in at the right time"

"Sweet, " Ocean replies
Picking up Pharrell's diamond-studded gold
Chain that sit's fat
As a tow rope at the edge
Of the mixing board ocean, dressed in
A gray Supreme hoodie, jeans
And black Wallabees, smiles as he dons the
Weighty necklace it jibes with the new
Rolex on his left wrist
The Cartier Juste Un Clou
Bracelet on his right in a bit, he'll
Instagram a bejeweled portrait of himself
But
First he unveils three new tracks, stored on
His phone, that Pharrell pronounces "crazy
With a lot of comprehensive layers just sort
Of living harmoniously" When Ocean says
He worries a rap number called "Blue
Whale" is "risky because I'm rhyming
" Pharrell shakes his head

"That's not risky that thought is dead, " he
Says "It's like, 'You know, I rhyme, too' "

Turning to me, Pharrell says
"I always call him James Taylor
He's probably the closest
Thing to a writer's perfect
Exemplification of the
Unconscious all the songs are
Like movies all you
Need to do is close your eyes"
Now it's Pharrell's turn to
Spin a track-in-progress
They listen, bobbing their heads slightly
Occasionally both bursting into song
When the room is quiet again
Ocean says the song "feels like a Rubik's
Cube melodically you want something
Emotionally rich on that
You know what I'm saying? But if I
Listen to it enough, I could map
A way out" Before we exit
They agree Ocean will come back later
This evening to work on
It pharrell is attending the first show
Of Jay-Z's eight-night run at the
Brand-new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, but
He says he'll come back
Too "Ain't no afterparty more
Important than this"

"Map a way out" it's a phrase
Ocean will use more than once
During the next four hours as we
Talk about his life and
Especially his last few months
He's still just 25, but it feels
Like he packed ten years' worth
Of living into 2012 alone, releasing
A heralded album, Channel Orange
In July and headlining Saturday Night
Live's season premiere in
September throughout this period he
Has also been handling
The reverberations of something
He revealed on
Tumblr just before Channel Orange's
Debut: his memories of an intimate
Relationship with his first love
A man a rare admission in the
Macho world of hip-hop and R&B

It's important to Ocean to be the
Master of his own identity: Last
Year he changed his name from Lonny
Breaux to Christopher Francis Ocean
Drawing on Frank Sinatra and the original
Ocean's 11 film for inspiration
And yet he admit's
That the failed relationship he mentioned on
Tumblr sent him spinning out of control
Rocking
Him even as it improved his musicality
Transforming him from a man with skills to
A skillful man with something
He suddenly was burning
To say what was going through his mind
This summer, he tells me, was something like
This: "If I'm going to say this
I'm going to be
Better than all you pieces of shit what you
Going to say now? You can't say, 'Oh
They're only listening to him because
He said this' No
They're listening to me because I'm gifted
And this project is brilliant"

GQ: GQ: You were born
In Long Beach, California
But moved to New Orleans at age
5 when is the first
Time you realized you wanted to
Write and perform music?
Frank Ocean: fo: I feel like I
Was writing as I was learning
To talk writing was always a
Goto form of communication and
I knew I could sing from being
In tune with the radio
I would listen to whatever my
Mom played in the car
The big divas: Whitney, Mariah, Celine
Anita Baker then I got exposed
To Prince i think
It was "The Beautiful Ones" He was screaming
At the end and this lady who
Was playing it was saying
"Ain't no man scream like Prince"
And I was like, "That's fucking awesome"

GQ: Your dad had left when you were 6
So your mom raised you on her own
Frank Ocean: I haven't seen him since
And for a while, you know
We were not middle-class 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 he'd had
A really troubled life with crack, heroin
And alcohol and had kids he wasn't an ideal
Parent to i was his second chance
And he gave it his best
Shot 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 he was a mentor at AA and NA
And I would go with him to meetings

GQ: When did you start recording?
Frank Ocean: 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 my dad had been a singer and
Keyboardist so my mom was like
"You're going to follow that bum? Maybe you
Should just go to law school"

GQ: You stayed in New Orleans until after
Katrina, then drove cross-country
With just $1, 100 in your pocket what made
You move to Los Angeles?
Frank Ocean: I had been
Putting together these
Demos that I was going to properly
Record in a real studio in LA so
I saved up money doing Sheetrocking
And I drove out with my
Girlfriend at the time i
Was only supposed to be there for six weeks i
Don't feel like I ever made a
Conscious decision to stay six years
You just kind of roll 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

GQ: So how did you go
From Fatburger to writing
Songs for Brandy and Justin
Bieber and John Legend?
Frank Ocean: We're talking about hundreds of
Things that happened one night
I went to a listening party
Just to pick up my backpack from a friend
Next thing I know, I'm in this studio
And everybody's putting their
Laptops on the pool table
Playing songs through these big-ass
Speakers it was crazy and they wanted me to
Play, so I plugged in, and they were like
"Oh shit" There were producers there
And they said
"You should come up to the studio and
Write" So I did i'd sit
In those rooms for hours but I
Wouldn't write any line that
Was as good as the lines being written
In the rooms next to me
It was just like: I had to
Elevate i was looking at
It 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?

GQ: You're talking about the relationship
You wrote about on
Your Tumblr page the one that you likened
To "being thrown from a cliff" when you were
19 how did that change your songwriting?
Frank Ocean: It became effortless
Like breathing because
Now I have something I really need
To say it was Mindfucknet it was a
Floodgate it opened up the works

GQ: Def Jam reportedly signed
You as a recording
Artist in 2009 but didn't open up it's
Checkbook at that point to
Help you record the
Next year, you met Tyler, the Creator
And the other members of Odd
Future how important was that?

GQ: They inspired you to record
Your first album, Nostalgia, Ultra
On your own
Dime and release it for free, right?
Def Jam had signed Lonny Breaux, then this
Frank Ocean guy puts out
An Internet sensation
That makes a lot of best-albums lists
When they tried to sign you again
Was it satisfying to say, "Oh
You already have"?
Frank Ocean: yeah, I just told them
"Give me $1 million if you
Want the next album"

It's still sprinkling a bit when we dive back
Into the hired Lexus and head across the
East River to the Museum of the Moving Image
In Queens i've suggested it because I
Know Ocean's love of movies
Is so engulfing that
They've become a part of his vocabulary on
His first album, he sampled some of the
Dialogue in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut
And he tells me he got
The inspiration for his hit
Song "Super Rich Kids" from
Steven Soderbergh's Traffic he
Has said that he sees writing
A song as making
A photograph out of materials
That aren't visible

So it's no surprise when Ocean whips out
His phone and starts taking pictures of
The Men in Black 3 monster exhibit, of
The weird installation with beanbag chairs
Even of the angular stairways but
The highlight is when
We come upon a collection of vintage arcade
Games anyone who saw Ocean's
Performance on SNL has
An inkling of his love of games
(He finished his set that night
By retreating to play
Galaga as John Mayer riffed on guitar) Now
As he spots
The original Pong, Super Breakout
Asteroids, Galaxian, Donkey Kong
And Frogger
Games, all in a row, he steps more quickly
As if greeting old friends

This, I realize
Is a sort of Frank Ocean version
Of heaven because these aren't just
Decommissioned museum pieces you can buy
Tokens and actually play i
Buy four, and he chooses Battle Zone
In which you try to sink
Things that appear on the horizon his
First game he scores 7, 000
Points, and the machine prompts him to
Type his initials in the winner's
Circle: CFO, in seventh place his fourth
Game, he racks up 12, 000
Points second place but when
I congratulate him, he points to the number
One score: it's 12, 000, too "I'm
The same as first place
" says the man who must be
Better than all those other
Pieces of shit and then we
Get back in the car

GQ: Is it true that you wrote the
Songs for Channel Orange in three weeks?
Frank Ocean: yeah
Then I worked on them for nine
Months a typical gestation period

GQ: You're something of a perfectionist
I gather
Frank Ocean: John Mayer and I were talking in
Rehearsal before SNL, and he was like
"You love to take the hardest way you don't
Always have to" But I don't know about
That it's like Billy Joel says in that
Song "Vienna" When the truth is told
That you can get what you want or
You can just get old 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

I never think about myself as
An artist working in
This time i think about it in macro
I feel like Elton John
Just made "Tiny Dancer"
He just made that shit like last night
Jimi Hendrix just burned his
Fucking guitar onstage right?
Freddie Mercury just had the half mike stand
In his hand in the fucking stadium prince was
Just on the mountain in "Under the
Cherry Moon" And I was there
That's how I look
At it like this shit just went down
You see the mastery that
I'm surrounded by? How
On earth am I going to take
The easiest way? A friend of mine jokes that
I have a painstaking royalty
Complex like maybe
I was a duke in a past life but
All you have is 100 percent period

GQ: Let's talk about your
Open letter on Tumblr
Posting that must've felt like
The hardest way frank Ocean: Yes, absolutely

GQ: So why did you do it?
Were some people raising questions
About the male pronouns in a
Few of the songs?
Frank Ocean: I had Skyped into a
Listening session that Def Jam
Was hosting for Channel Orange, and
One of the journalists, very harmlessly
Quotation gestures in the air
"very harmlessly" wrote a piece and mentioned
That i was just like, "Fuck it talk about it
Don't talk about it talk about this"
No more mystery through with that

GQ: You'd written the letter
Back in December
For inclusion in the liner notes
Were you afraid of
The aftermath when you finally
Posted it in July?
Frank Ocean: The night I posted it
I cried like a fucking baby
It was like all the
Frequency just clicked to a change in my head
All the receptors were now
Receiving a different signal
And I was happy
I hadn't been happy in so long
I've been sad again since
But it's a totally different take
On sad there's just
Some magic in truth and honesty and openness
GQ: Exactly how did your perspective change?
Frank Ocean: Whatever I said in that
Letter, before I posted it
Seemed so huge but when you come out
The other side
Now your brain instead of receiving fear
Sees "Oh, shit happened and
Nothing happened" Brain says
"Self, I'm fine" I look around, and
I'm touching my fucking limbs
And I'm good before anybody called me and
Said congratulations or anything nice
It had already changed it
Wasn't from outside it was
Completely in here, in my head

GQ: Did you worry it
Would derail your career?
Frank Ocean: I had those
Fears in black music
We've got so many leaps and bounds to
Make with acceptance and tolerance
In regard to that issue it reflects
Something just ingrained, you know
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 tempting to give
Those views and words
That ignorance more attention than
They deserve very tempting

Some people said
"He's saying he fell in love with a guy for
Hype" As if that's the best hype you
Can get in hip-hop or black
Music so I knew that
If I was going to say what I said
It had to be in concert with one of the most
Brilliant pieces of art that has come out in
My generation and that's what I did why can I
Say that? Why I don't have to affect
All this humility and shit is
Because I worked my
Ass off i worked my face off and the
Part that you love the most is the easiest
Part for me so I'll do it again

GQ: I'm sure if you'd wanted an
Excuse not to reveal the relationship, you
Could have found ten people in the
Industry who would have said, "Wait"
Frank Ocean: The pitch is
"You'll encounter less
Resistance in life if you say, 'No
I'm going to just keep dating girls'
" But then you're minimizing
The resistance that you're feeling from
Yourself on the inside
There's so much upkeep on that
Shit so much upkeep on
A lie but at least everybody else is cool
With how you carry on with
Your life that's what they
Say but know what fear does
To your strength you
Don't even feel smart or capable
You just feel broken
And not just your heart just a broken person

GQ: So do you consider yourself bisexual?
Frank Ocean: You can move
To the next question
I'll respectfully say that life
Is dynamic and
Comes along with dynamic experiences
And the same sentiment
That I have towards genres of music
I have towards a lot of labels and boxes and
Shit i'm in this business to be creative I'll
Even diminish it and say to
Be a content provider
One of the pieces of content that I'm
For fuck sure not giving is
Porn videos i'm not
A centerfold i'm not trying to sell you sex
People should pay attention to
That in the letter:
I didn't need to label it for it
To have impact because
People realize everything
That I say is so relatable
Because when you're talking about
Romantic love
Both sides in all scenarios feel the
Same shit 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'm giving you what I feel like
You can feel the other shit
You can't feel you can't feel a
Box you can't feel a
Label don't get caught up in that
Shit there's so much something in
Life don't get caught up in the
Nothing that shit is nothing
You know? It's nothing vanish the fear

As we make our way back from Astoria
Ocean tells me that he's got at least five
Projects in the works, among them a song he
Wrote for Quentin Tarantino's
Django Unchained songs
He's working on for Alicia Keys
And Beyoncé songs for his own third
Album and a European tour
Which he says he wants to model
On Pink Floyd's The Wall
Tour he's even thinking about maybe
Opening his own arcade
(though later he'll post on Tumblr
That this idea is "morphing")

He is considering buying a place
In New York City he needs a break from LA's
Relentless sunshine, he says, and right
Now Manhattan is giving him exactly
That: The rain is coming
Down in sheets we pull up to his SoHo hotel
And he asks if we can idle while he runs in
To get "studio-ready" A few
Minutes later, he emerges
Laptop in hand he's switched his
Contacts out for glasses
And changed into what looks like board shorts
And another Supreme hoodie
This one maroon it's 9 pm on a Friday
As we head back to Jungle City
Pharrell is out in Brooklyn
Waiting for Jay-Z to take the stage but not
Ocean he has a song to write

Amy Wallace is a GQ correspondent