His ‘blackness’ may not be as upfront as the good kids, but it’s no less present. Ocean, conversely, is a sentimentalist through and through, a hapless romantic who wears his heart on his headband.  As a Compton ‘survivor’ who could weave engrossing tales of inner city life and realise the struggle of the young African American so earnestly, Lamar’s credentials would never come into question. When Channel ORANGE dropped in 2012, its main rival on end-of-year lists was Kendrick Lamar’s equally accomplished Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. Ocean previously stated that for him, “It’s about the stories … then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story and all kinds of sonic goodness.†That ‘sonic goodness’ – an underselling if there ever was one – might be part of the reason Ocean isn’t as highly regarded of a social commentator of the black experience as some of his contemporaries. ‘Pyramids†may not seem it at first listen, but it’s a provocative and politically-charged epic that elegantly deconstructs contemporary racial politics. Ocean is working at his most confident and free-flowing here, forgoing cheap hooks and ‘dope’ genre tropes in favour of a more flexible, uncompromising and heterogeneous approach.Īs undeniably good as the music is – and it is undeniable – Ocean appears just as determined to imbue his lyrics with that same sense of unparalleled conceptual creativity as he dumps a freighter-load of ideas in the time it takes to oven cook a frozen pizza. Sure, it’s a bit of a structural and stylistic hotchpotch, but it’s also finely tuned into a soulful, multi-layered odyssey with some “how did he make that?†electronic segues.
Pyramids frank ocean used in a film movie#
A modern day symphony this is what Mozart would have written had he grew up in 1990’s Long Beach (what a movie that would be). ‘Pyramids’ transitions from Ocean’s trademark warped R&B to teeny bopper synths, to melodic electro house, to jam session sax until it’s all capped off by an unassumingly good John Mayer guitar solo. Trying to ascribe a genre to this is like trying to nail the shore to the sand. Audaciously ambitious, operatic and distinctly symmetrical, ‘Pyramids’ cements its creator as a monumental force of contemporary music whose aspirational tendencies make him vital and also one of the only living artists who might just earn the title of Prince’s spiritual successor. Anyone who has listened to near 10-minute opus ‘Pyramids’ should be fully aware that Frank Ocean is so much more than just an unapologetically sentimental cinephile. The only minor gripe one could find in all this was that Ocean’s heart-rending admission dominated his narrative so much that people forget that Channel ORANGE is as much a work about black identity as it is a sexual one. When he released the critically lauded Channel ORANGE just a few days later, critics fell over them trying to contextualise that revelation into Ocean’s picturesque and sincere storytelling. Ocean may not be a rapper, but he’s certainly a part of that world, and his nakedly honest words weren’t an easy fit for the guarded and sometimes homophobic hip hop community. It was so much more than a matter of just “gay hype†though, because the sheer confessional power of the piece is what really disarmed people. I suppose we should expect it, as the seismic tremors of that admission to an unrequited homosexual love are still being felt in the world of urban music all these years later. It has to be said, it’s become something of a cliché to reference that headline-grabbing Tumblr post when writing about Frank Ocean. Welcome to One Track Minded, where we pick a select cut from a chosen act and delve beneath the surface. Frank Ocean may well never release that almost mythical second album of his so here’s Mark Conroy to wax lyrical on the 10-minute masterpiece that is ‘ Pyramids’.
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