TROY NōKA remembers it as the day he felt the stars aligning for Frank, who he had befriended years before, when the singer fled to Los Angeles from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.įor the artist now known as Maejor, it took a plane ride and several nudges from friends to finally give Nostalgia, ULTRA. laughs now as he recalls the moment he spotted Frank’s Tumblr post, which contained a shoutout to the young engineer-who the singer affectionately referred to as the “raddest Mexican”-for working on what would be both of their first projects. MIDI Mafia were relieved when Frank told them the project they helped fight for would finally see the light of day. without clearances and without his label’s support, on a Tumblr page, under a completely different artist name, for absolutely free.įor his collaborators, it was a moment they’ll never forget. On that date, Frank still released Nostalgia, ULTRA. Neither of those things ultimately mattered, though. He was still missing two key ingredients for his introductory mixtape as a solo artist, though: the samples didn’t clear and, an even more difficult problem to shake, his label didn’t care. 16, Frank Ocean had almost everything where it needed to be. He even watched Brandy cry over a “beautiful” song he had just recorded, only for him to re-cut it for the next six hours with his engineer.īy Feb. He spread out photos of an orange BMW E30 M3 on a table in front of producer TROY NōKA to ensure his dream car would be dreamy enough for the cover of his debut project. Searching for the perfect sound, he toyed around with different microphones and bounced around rooms in the home studio of production duo MIDI Mafia to make sure the energy was just right. Like the rest of Nostalgia, it's dark, playful, a little tasteless, and absolutely riveting.In the months leading up to Feb. Sampling world-class sulkers like Coldplay and Radiohead, as well as Stanley Kubrick's queasy dissection of marriage, Eyes Wide Shut, Ocean saves his boldest move for the 7-minute epic "American Wedding," fantasizing about his nuptials as the ultimate hymn of coke-addled self-absorption, The Eagles' "Hotel California," plays out in its entirety. Ocean presents himself as a troubled guy in his early 20s who does cocaine for breakfast (as he sings over an aestheticized shuffle supplied by superstar producer Tricky Stewart on "Novacane") and can't decide whether to rue or revel in his conflicted feelings about women (the hit-single-in-waiting "Songs For Women"). Nostalgia is a moody, frequently downbeat character study, a sort of musical version of the Reagan-era confessional Less Than Zero. Hearing the record, it's no shock that Ocean's label didn't know what to do with him. But after going nowhere as a solo artist signed to Island Def Jam, Ocean decided to post Nostalgia, Ultra as a free download last month. That doesn't jibe with his resume, a seemingly impeccable combination of mainstream R&B credentials (he's co-written songs for John Legend and Justin Bieber) and underground cool (he's associated with outlaw hip-hop collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All). Gorgeous reddish-orange vinyl that matches the M3 on the cover - "Much like the '80s BMW on the cover of his debut album, Nostalgia, Ultra, gifted singer-songwriter Frank Ocean apparently is out of touch with the times.
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