To What Extent Did The Release of Frank Ocean’s 2012 Open Letter via Tumblr Influenced The Concept of Masculinity in his Music?
For an artist within the hip-hop culture, to declare publicly depressed, vulnerable or fragile, is to separate from the stereotypical image of a rapper. It is not a secret that hip-hop is mostly dominated by men and the constant manifestation of masculinity and virility is one of the main elements of this culture. This masculinity, usually represented in sexual conquests or physical confrontations, has been inherent to hip-hop since its creation, and for many years, commercially successful artists like Drake continue to generate debates among those who claim that his music is not respected in the genre for being very soft and sentimental, and who say that the concept of masculinity is shifting in contemporary hip-hop.
Thus, by 2010 the trend started to change even more: the new was to show the vulnerable side, not as a sign of weakness, but as a reinforcement of the moral heights of a new male paradigm based on empathy and sensitivity, which not only does not repress emotions but creatively conveyed them. During the summer of 2012, a Tumblr post signed by artist Frank Ocean was published announcing to the world that his first love was a man. It seems no coincidence that the letter was published on July 4th, the day of United States’ Independence. The bravery, tenderness, and openness of Ocean’s words about his sexuality make for remarkable reading in any context, but in hip-hop it’s major (Mullaly, 2012).
The current literature review reports varied findings with regards to essential concepts that will be mentioned throughout the article. A contrast between analog and digital approaches to the concept of the Self is useful. From an analog view, the Self is performed in a universal and natural manner. This one differs from the digital-self, which is the persona that an individual portrays in online environments (Cupchik, 2011). By posting such revealing statement in the social media platform Tumblr, Ocean performed a digital Self around his masculinity that contrasts with the analog one portrayed on some of his songs off his first mixtape and following two full length LPs. The artist ignores the traditional concepts of gender, and moves away from the stereotyped sphere that surrounds virility, which refers to characteristics considered to define masculine being as strength or sexual capacity. Of interest of the article is also the musical genre in which Frank Ocean’s work is labeled. Alternative R&B is known as a stylistic variation of contemporary R&B that draws inspiration from hip-hop, rock, EDM and soul (Henry, 2016). The genre gained popularity in the early 2010s thanks to artists such as Ocean, The Weeknd, or Miguel.
By conducting a qualitative textual analysis, the present paper will examine the concept of masculinity by comparing the digital-self performed by Frank Ocean with the release of his open letter on Tumblr, and his exterior world self through a semionarrative analysis of his lyrics in Nostalgia, ULTRA (2011), Channel Orange (Def Jam Recordings, 2012), and Blonde (Boys Don’t Cry, 2016). To what extent did the release of this personal declaration changed the conception of masculinity in his work?
Who is Frank Ocean?
Singer-songwriter Frank Ocean became popular in 2011 when writing songs for Beyoncé or John Legend among others, and while being a member of hip-hop musical collective Odd Future, from which come other names like Syd tha Kid (The Internet) or Tyler the Creator. That same year he released his self-produced mixtape Nostalgia, ULTRA for free, which gathered attention and praise from the music press. With the release of his first studio album, Channel Orange a clever, sinuous and confident deconstruction of alternative R&B, Ocean topped the music charts around the world, earned comparisons to such greats as Stevie Wonder or Prince, and most notably, was nominated for six Grammy’s in 2013, winning Best Urban Contemporary album. After 4 years of silence, he released his second and long-awaited work, Blonde. It peaked at #1 on the Billboard 200 and maintained this status for 73 weeks, becoming the third largest album debut of the year (Billboard, 2016). Thus, Blonde was met with widespread critical acclaim being hailed as “one of the most intriguing and contrary records ever made” (Jonze, 2016).
I decide to incorporate these data in the article as they manifest the recognition and respect Ocean has built over the years through his music and recent variations from societal standards.
Frank Ocean’s Sea Change
Ocean’s first work, Nostalgia, ULTRA focused mainly on women. In the lead single Novacane, Frank describes his various states of madness exploring isolation, loneliness and a lack of emotions caused by numbness. We discover that the cause of this madness is a woman who wants to be a dentist. He describes this woman as being both gorgeous and smart, singing:
“Bed full of women, flip on a tripod, little red light on shootin’ / I blame it on the model broad with the Hollywood smile / Stripper booty with a rack like wow”
These various states of numbness are encapsulated into the song’s title Novacane. Of course, with Frank’s ideal woman aspiring to be a dentist, the use of Novacane is a clever way to express the numbness she causes it. Because of Frank’s numbness, he does not experience any type of feelings for the women he sleeps with, and consequently, he is unable to fulfill them either sexually or emotionally. The track illustrates the role of masculinity in the hip-hop genre, where the objectification of women is glorified. This general lack of feeling on Novacane is a stark contrast of the warmth and innocence reflected on his open letter (Ocean, 2012). He claims:
“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 would change my life. Back then my mind would wander to the women I had been with, the ones I cared for and thought I was in love with. I reminisced about the sentimental songs I enjoyed when I was a teenager.”
The realization of his sexual orientation marked Frank’s passage into adulthood, which helped him to distinguish true love from the mélange of lust, need for accompaniment and physical affection. By sharing these emotions in a social media platform and confronting his own reality, Ocean creates a distinction of the Self he performs in songs and the one portrayed online. In this way, the confessional letter gained a positive response, where the music industry and the fans showed respect, tolerance and full acceptance for Ocean’s way of living (Hampton, 2012). Acceptance was not something he was asking for, but somehow he earned it, and it is inevitable to see it reflected on his follow-up work, Channel Orange. Of all the songs on the album, Bad Religion is the one that seems the most directly referred to the unrequited love spoken about in the open letter. The track is surprisingly less than 3 minutes long, but it carries the emotional weight of a tragic novel. It tells the story of a man who is in a lonely tragic state of desperation, that asks a stranger, his taxi driver, to be his therapist:
“This unrequited love
To me it’s nothing but a one-man cult
And cyanide in my Styrofoam cup
I can never make him love me
I can’t tell you the truth about my disguise / I can’t trust no one”
To be heartbroken is bad enough, but to be heartbroken without any surrounding support because the heartbreak is contained within the secret, seems doubly difficult. Bad Religion is both an expression and preservation of heartbreak, a document of love lost, an artifact of unrequited love for a man that does not have the same sexual orientation as Ocean. The message of the track is connected to the Tumblr blog post in a way where Frank, being the protagonist, is praying for social acceptance, avoiding to label his sexual orientation and challenging the way the hip-hop and R&B community has historically coped with the topic.
Cars as a symbol of carefree black masculinity
There’s a cinematic quality in Ocean’s discography that keeps drawing people in. The lyrical storytelling and the atmosphere it paints, is like nothing heard before in alternative R&B. It is impressive how, without the use of a visual aid, the music shapes such vivid imagery. Images of childhood and lost summers, and especially cars, something that has been a staple of Frank’s work since the beginning of this career. Cars are his language but not in the conventional hip-hop usage, where cars are used as a symbol of status and wealth and, specifically masculinity. Instead, Frank’s cars articulate a sense of vulnerability or intimacy and he also uses them as a conduit for storytelling. A sort of visual shorthand for landmark moments throughout his life. His music, like driving alone, is very private and self-reflective, and cars are used as the framing device for his memories. Upon the release of Blonde, Frank shared a Tumblr post where he asks: “How much of my life has happened inside of a car?” (Ocean, 2016)
In the song Ivy, we hear Frank naming a BMW X6 when recollecting about a former love. Even when he is not directly naming the cars models, many songs on the album are informed by the act of driving. On Skyline To, Ocean sings:
“That’s a pretty long third gear in this car / Glidin’ on the five / The deer run across, kill the headlights”
It would seem cars are a deepening grain into Frank Ocean’s being. As inseparable symbols of the past, as metaphors for aspects of his personality, and as set pieces in which many of his most memorable life experiences took place. The song White Ferrari begins with the later, as Frank describes the end of a car ride with a significant other, as a metaphor for the end of the relationship.
“Bad luck to talk on these rids /
Mind on the road, your dilated eyes watch the clouds float”
Cars are also present in the open letter symbolizing carefree black masculinity and ignoring the heteronormative and the traditional conception of it in the genre.
“I was still in my car telling myself it was gonna be fine and to take deep breaths. I took the breaths and carried on. I kept up a peculiar friendship with him because I couldn’t imagine keeping up my life without him. I struggled to master myself and my emotions. I wasn’t always successful.”
Conclusion
Artists as passionate and as insightful as Frank do not come along often. With very little output, just a mixtape, two full length LPs and one visual album, Frank has proven to be one of the most gifted and game-changing new voices of this generation. One of the things that made Ocean’s letter so moving is its authenticity and rawness of expression. It was not a press release, nor a production, nor a calculated decision. Ocean did not even have to label his sexuality by saying the word “gay” in the letter to have an impact, forcing the readers to get involved with a specific romantic experience. While some listeners may ignore the undertone and emotional value that Ocean songs have, and just focus on his voice, for others Frank Ocean has been a significant figure within the hip-hop/R&B sphere. Through the performance of his digital self when releasing such unforgettable statement, and with help of his artistry and most revealing lyrics, the singer-songwriter has built a persona that aims to reshape what it means to be a black gay man, not only in the hip-hop genre, but in the music industry.
“I feel like a free man”
