The agonizingly long wait for Frank Ocean’s next album may nearly be over.
It has been four years since Ocean released his debut album ‘channel ORANGE’ to the world, way back on July 10th 2012. Fans across the globe have been anticipating the return of the secretive star for well over a year, with many people taking to Twitter to vent their frustration on the long wait. However, according to reports from the New York Times, Frank is set to release his next album, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ on Friday through an exclusive deal with Apple Music.
According to an individual with knowledge of release plans who wishes to remain anonymous, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ is set to be released along with a major video and a publication of the same name, which will be distributed at Apple Stores across the world. The album deal between Ocean (born Christopher Edwin Breaux) and Apple is set to last for two weeks before becoming more widely distributed.
Ocean was hailed the next big thing in hip hop and R&B after the release of ‘channel ORANGE’. Known to many in the music industry as one of the best songwriters around, Ocean found global fame after releasing his debut album ‘channel ORANGE’, becoming one of the hottest musicians on the planet in the process. The album shot to No.2 on both the U.S and U.K Album Chart, selling over 131,000 copies in it’s first week alone in the U.S. Ocean went on to win numerous awards across the world the following year, including a Grammy for ‘Best Urban Contemporary Album’, and a BRIT Award for ‘International Male Artist’.
In 2012, Frank caused quite a stir in the music industry by announcing in an open letter on his Tumblr blog that he had fallen in love with a man at the age of 19. The singer was both praised and slammed for ‘coming out’, which was a first for a high profile hip hop artist. Numerous celebrities publicly voiced their support for Ocean following his announcement, including Beyoncé and Jay Z. Members of the hip hop industry generally responded positively to the announcement, while the world waited to see what Ocean would follow the announcement with.
Ocean announced he was working on a second album way back in 2013, but he’s kept the music so deeply hidden that even Adele has expressed frustration. Yes, the Adele.
“I’m just fing waiting for Frank fing Ocean to come out with his album,” the global star said in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2015. “It’s taking so f***ing long. That sounds so stupid, coming from me, doesn’t it?”
After over a year of speculated release dates, last month a cryptic image of a library due date card appeared on Ocean’s website. The date on the card can be seen to have changed more than 15 times since July 2015 (the original release date for album No. 2), with the final date reading July 2016. Accompanying the image was a caption that read, “BOYS DON’T CRY #JULY2016.”
Fans across the globe speculated that the image confirmed the album’s title, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, and finally, a release date of July 2016. However, this was not the case.
It is now August 2016 and the album has not yet been released. On Monday 1st August, the Boys Don’t Cry official website featured a live video stream of an individual doing woodwork in what appears to be a warehouse. To the top right of this live stream video, the Apple Music logo was in sight, which provided highly anticipating fans with a glimpse of hope that the album could be released soon. With the news of a Friday 5th August release coming from an anonymous individual, could we be getting our hopes up for yet another fake release date?
We here at CelebMix certainly hope the album is released sooner rather than later.