It’s pretty hard to argue at this point in time that Kendrick Lamar is the outstanding musical genius of this generation. He just is. The depth and focus of what he does, the flawless list of collaborators, the unparalleled triptych of his last three albums… you simply can’t compare him to any other contemporary artist. But if Kung Fu Kenny is John Lennon then Frank Ocean is Paul McCartney.

That metaphor isn’t perfect, obviously. Frank has the poppier attitudes, like Paul, but John’s songs were catchy as hell too and Frank… he’s doing things differently these days. Four years without barely a noise and suddenly there are two albums at once (funny there was that rumour that Kendrick was gonna drop a turnaround second album - when Frank already did it). One a lo-fi visual album stream thing called Endless and then a proper LP: Blonde, which was perhaps the musical masterpiece of 2016.

Now he’s doing these radio hours and even on the radio he can’t stick to a fixed schedule, dropping the fifth episode as a bonus only days after the fourth despite being roughly fortnightly up until then. Blonde came out simultaneously with his Boys Don’t Cry mag and all the while he’s somehow maintained his famous elusiveness and reclusiveness. Only a handful of interviews, even online he’s been pretty guarded. 

Frank Ocean to GQ in 2012: "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."

That in itself is swimming against the tide these days, just look at the rollout for Blonde. It dropped out of thin air, with only a few weeks of rumours and sparse details. It has two titles. It was officially self-released and only had one single, one video. A full studio release and there’d be hype for months and we’d still be getting new vids unrolled. He’d have been back on Saturday Night Live and doing the late night TV circuits. A few radio spots. It definitely woulda been made eligible for Grammy consideration.

But you know what Frank did in the first month after Blonde was released? He went travelling through Asia and Europe. Not touring, just travelling. Meanwhile his album was bought/streamed somewhere between 225,000-275,000 times in its first week, which Forbes estimated was worth around a million US dollars in profits.

And those profits were his alone after the record was dropped independently. Frank signed with Def Jam back in 2009 but they pissed him around and tried to limit him as an artist. When his 2011 mixtape, ‘Nostalgia, Ultra’, came out it did so with no involvement from the record company (which saved him a lawsuit from The Eagles…). By then Frank had already chummed up with the Odd Future chaps, who you can probably credit for unleashing the creative rebel within, and the rest isn’t exactly history because he made up with Def Jam to produce and release his critically lauded ‘Channel Orange’ in 2012 but in the four years since that relationship must have gone south again.

You can understand a label getting frustrated with a dude like Frank Ocean, putting out this brilliant album and then disappearing for four years, but in the same way that some birds just ain’t meant to be caged, Frank Ocean + Industry Norms was never a happy marriage. An American one, maybe, but one always fated for divorce.

It was a New York Times article that first suggested the return of Frank Ocean. Their estimate of an album within a week was off the mark but soon enough there was a website with what appeared to be a black and white live stream of Ocean in a room, doing a lil woodwork and playing a couple instruments, (it turned out to be a looped vid). And then, ladies and gents, we had Endless… a 45-minute visual album which came out exclusively on Apple Music. A day later Blonde appeared and people started to piece it together that Endless, which still doesn’t have an individualised track release, was at least in part a pump fake to fulfil his contract obligations, making Frank Ocean a free agent.

Oh and he owns all his master tapes.

This article began comparing him to Paul McCartney but maybe the real predecessor here is Prince. The Purple One’s intensely controlled releases and guarded privacy were an obvious influence/inspiration here, as they should be to every artist really, but then there’s also the relentless creativity, the supreme standards of quality and the constant breaking of expectations. Endless was all sorts of avant-garde but Blonde was a hugely experimental album in its own way too. This R&B singer with the hip hop connections and he puts out his second major album and it’s barely got a beat on it.

In the last few months Frank’s taken up a residency of sorts with Apple Music, doing a fortnightly (or so) radio show on Beats 1. ‘blonded RADIO’, it’s called. The first episode appeared in February and the next two weeks later. It’d be a month before the third and then back to the fortnights… until episode five dropped suddenly a day after number four. What’s more is that every episode has come with a new premiere of a tune, amidst the handpicked playlist.

These are proper tunes as well. Not half-assed cashers or demos but fully produced singles. There’s his collab with Calvin Harris and Migos, ‘Slide’, on which he’s credited as a feature but also a song-writer and it’s all sorts of catchy. ‘Chanel’ features A$AP Rocky and that one’s a jam too. ‘Lens’, well that one got two versions with one including the vocals of Travis Scott while ‘Biking’ (ft. Jay Z & Tyler, The Creator… just casually) proves he can make a hit out of damn near anything. As for number five, a remix of ‘Slide on Me’ from Endless with Young Thug in tow, that might be the best track of the lot of them. These are bangers, genuine pop songs and everything, and Frank throws them out there all on their own.

To be fair to the industry here, Frank’s independent now and he needs to make a buck to feed himself in between album cycles. So that’s probably where the radio show comes from and Apple woulda said they need something fresh to really sell this thing. Ironically Jay Z turns up on the first episode to talk about how outdated the industry is now and how they’ve gotta learn to serve artists and fans much better in the future (by the way, the show isn’t live but there are a few pre-recorded skits, intros and, in the case of the Jay Z thing, an interview – and the music is a brilliant and eclectic as you’d hope). There aren’t too many people who’d argue with that but then there are even less who are out there doing it their own way like Frank Ocean is.

It’s been a journey to get to this stage but Frank has eluded and delighted the entire way. He has resisted every opportunity to sell-out and that supreme artistic integrity coupled with his generational talent has made him a legend in his own time. It’s nothing but thrilling when a great talent still takes left turns where everyone else takes rights, who throws the extra pass where most dudes would just shoot. But that’s Frank Ocean, mate. He plays by his own rules, the reclusive bloody genius that he is.

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