“I’ve been meaning to fuck you in the garden” laconically croons Frank Ocean on “Nature Feels”, the final track of his critically acclaimed mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra. He moves on from this stark invitation to detail the experience in playfully endemic terms, Ocean now “Feeling like Adam when he first found out this existed / Me and my Eve trying out our first positions”. On the very same mixtape, Ocean declares without hesitation in “We All Try” that “I believe that marriage isn’t / between a man and woman / but between love and love”.
The honesty and beauty of these two ethereal and genderless entities, “love and love”, gained real-world poignancy when a letter, entitled simply as “thank you’s”, went up on Ocean’s tumblr today.
Ocean never says in clear words “I’m not heterosexual”, but no one would ever expect such a talented wordsmith to reduce his situation to three, soulless words. The stream-of-conscious style he writes in is an almost unchecked delve into the mind of another human being. Nothing can undermine his prophetical opening that “Whoever you are, wherever you are…I’m starting to think we’re a lot alike […] In the last 3 years I’ve screamed at my creator, screamed at the clouds in the sky, for some explanation. Mercy maybe. For peace of mind to rain like manna somehow”. His reaction to heartache and angst, his isolated subjectivity, his desperate hunt for answers or salvation – all of these are universal. Falling for someone you shouldn’t in disheartening unrequited flights of fancy is instantly relatable and a feeling that transcends cultures and ages.
Returning to his statement in “We All Try”, the fact that “love and love” for Ocean in this situation both happen to be male doesn’t detract from the universal heartache of the piece – but it does add the wider debate on homophobia in rap and R&B. The very collective Ocean belongs to, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, remains one of the main targets for criticism. Boasting in their catalogue of singles songs such as notably contentious “Ass Milk”, with lyrics such as “come take a stab at it faggot, I pre-ordered your casket” and “I hate gays, gangbangers and fucking jerkers / Unless it’s gay gangbangers that’s fucking jerkers”. Tyler, the Creator, the collective’s founder has defended accusations of homophobia in a 2011 NME interview, proclaiming that “I just say faggot and use gay as an adjective to describe stupid shit”. Regardless of whether or not OFWGKTA have in the past been homophobic (however unintentionally if we believe Tyler), the inability of rap and R&B to properly deal with or present non-heterosexuality is bigger than any single artist or group. Ocean declares that he “reminisced about the sentimental songs I enjoyed when I was a teenage […] I realised they were written in a language I did not yet speak. I realised too much, too quickly. Imagine being thrown from a plane”, but this idea of an unknown language provides a fitting metaphor for many listeners who simply can’t understand homophobia’s place in rap and R&B.
From Chris Brown’s recent use of #homothug in a twitter spat, to 50 Cent arguing that “If you a man and your over 25 and you don’t eat pussy just kill yourself damn it. The world will be a better place. Lol.”, the problem of intolerance is so engrained in this part of music culture that Frank Ocean’s letter has the real potential to change this image entirely. But just as Ocean stands as a defiant voice in OFWGKTA, so many other artists have given their voices and time to combat intolerance in the genre as a whole. It’s fitting that Ocean appears on Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch The Throne; these two artists lead from the top when it comes to tolerance. Jay-Z is a notable supporter of Obama’s bill to legalise same-sex marriages and Kanye West helped the shift away from gangster rap and all the venom that comes with it. Riding the same new wave of artistry as Frank Ocean, A$SAP Rocky has gone so far as to denounce his previous homophobia as “stupid” and casually say that rappers “need to stop being so close-minded because that will just cause the genre to fail. Who gives a fuck?”
Maybe Frank Ocean didn’t “come out”, but let us in. Let us into the inner sanctum of his emotions. Let us into a space where non-heterosexuality isn’t trivialised or shameful. Let us into a new age of rap and R&B.
Ocean’s beautifully metaphoric ending give us every reason to hope that a host of other artists can finally live their lives: “I feel like a free man, If I listen closely…I can hear the sky falling soon”.
Ocean’s letter can be found here
Touching tribute rap isnt about what people think of you, its about being real to yourself
I quite like this article, it is well written and quite balanced. it berates the negative aspects of hip hop culture whilst understanding that this is the era of change. Hip-hop/R&B is without a doubt my favourite sub-culture.
I must say that Vision has had a good stream of articles in the past few weeks and months. I particularly like the sports features, I had no idea about all the different sports before seeing them on Vision, and I am definitely going to try something new next term.