Hip-Hop World Gives Gay Singer Support
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: July 6, 2012
When Frank Ocean, a rising star in the R&B world, announced on Tuesday that his first true love had been a man, he seemed to be taking a giant risk with his career.
After all, Mr. Ocean, 24, is a rising star in the hypermasculine world of urban music, where singers cultivate images as lady-killers. He is a member of the Odd Future hip-hop collective, whose rappers are known for using anti-gay slurs. No other mainstream R&B artists have acknowledged having homosexual relationships. For decades, even the rumor of homosexuality had ruined artists in hip-hop circles.
But how big a gamble was it? Mr. Ocean has received strong support from other artists, his record label and cultural commentators, while the negative reactions have been largely muted and equivocal.
That lack of uproar seems to echo a broader shift in attitudes toward homosexuality and gay culture: Coming out is not as controversial as it once was. Mr. Ocean???s revelation occurred just days after Anderson Cooper, the CNN anchor, acknowledged that he was gay. It also comes just months after Jay-Z, Russell Simmons and other hip-hop figures forcefully supported President Obama after he announced his support for gay marriage.
???Ten or 15 years ago Frank Ocean could never have come out,??? said Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African-American studies at Duke University. ???It would have been death to his career.???
It is too early to tell if Mr. Ocean, who declined to be interviewed for this article, will suffer for his honesty when his debut album, ???Channel Orange??? (Island Def Jam), is released later this month. Sales of his record will be viewed as a measure of how much times have changed. ???It???s going to be a kind of litmus test,??? said Nelson George, a filmmaker and the author of the novel ???The Plot Against Hip-Hop.??? ???You can???t really know the real impact of this for six months to a year.???
It is worth noting that several major hip-hop stars have seemingly remained silent about Mr. Ocean???s decision, among them Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Drake and Nicki Minaj. Mr. Ocean was also the target of dozens of death threats and antigay comments on Twitter, mostly from men.
???There is still a very nasty streak of homophobia in this country that we have to overcome,??? Mr. Simmons, a founder and former owner of the Def Jam label, said. ???I???m hoping the support by his friends and the members of the creative community will override it and, whatever he loses, he will gain more.???
But Mr. Ocean???s declaration that he had fallen in love with a man and carried on an intimate relationship for more than a year, which he made in a rambling, poetic letter that he posted online, immediately attracted support from Mr. Simmons, who praised Mr. Ocean for his ???courage and honesty,??? adding that his statement ???gives hope and light to so many young people still living in fear.???
Other hip-hop heavyweights signaled their support. Jay-Z, the rapper and label owner, posted a long defense of Mr. Ocean on his Web site written by the critic Dream Hampton. Joie Manda, the president of Island Def Jam, said that Mr. Ocean ???broke down a wall that should never have been built.??? Female R&B artists like Solange Knowles and Rita Ora published supportive messages online.
And Tyler, the Creator, the shock rapper who has collaborated with Mr. Ocean in the cutting-edge group Odd Future, said on Twitter that he stood beside him. The statement was all the more surprising since Tyler, the Creator, often insults gay men in his lyrics.
The positive reaction suggests that there has been a cultural shift, music critics said. For a new generation of R&B fans, it seems, just as for the rest of the population, sexual orientation has become a less toxic issue.
???To even have a climate where a relatively young person ??? he???s 24 ??? is comfortable enough not only to intimate this in his lyrics but to make a statement about it and put it on Tumblr says we have come a way as a society,??? said Joan Morgan, a critic and the author of ???When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost,??? essays about feminism in hip-hop.
Jerry Boulding, urban editor for All Access, a radio trade publication, predicted urban program directors would still play Mr. Ocean???s songs if he maintained the quality of his previous work. ???It becomes a question of talent ??? he obviously is talented,??? Mr. Boulding said. ???But he is going to have to pick his material well, because some of the things he sang about before he came out obviously won???t have the same meaning now.???
The publicity surrounding Mr. Ocean???s announcement might even work in his favor, generating interest in the new album, Mr. Boulding said.
Ebro Darden, the program director for Hot 97, a hip-hop station in New York, said that Mr. Ocean???s sexual orientation would not be a factor in the station???s calculations about broadcasting his songs. ???Hot 97 has supported Frank Ocean since before his record label knew what to do with him, and we will continue to,??? he said. ???I hope people judge him based on his music, not personal preferences.???
There have been gay rappers before, but most were underground artists who never gained mainstream popularity. In the Bay Area a group of homosexual rappers formed the Deep Dickollective in 2000 and tried to start a ???homohop??? genre, putting out four albums before disbanding. The white lesbian rapper Invincible has developed a following in Detroit. The songwriter, rapper and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello and the independent R&B singer Rahsaan Patterson have also come out.
Mr. Ocean might have been a target of greater criticism, several critics said, if he were a tough-guy rapper or a seductive R&B singer in the tradition of Marvin Gaye. But his music is about nuanced heartbreak rather than seduction. ???He???s never been read as a hypermasculine R&B singer,??? Mr. Neal said. ???His audience is already sensitive to this kind of issue.???
Though he is not yet a major star, he is still a promising and in-demand songwriter. Last year he released ???Nostalgia, Ultra,??? a mixtape that received rave reviews and included the R&B hit ???Novacane,??? which has sold 185,000 singles. He also contributed two hooks to ???Watch the Throne??? (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam /Roc Nation), last year???s collaboration between Jay-Z and Kanye West, and wrote the track ???I Miss You??? with Beyonc?? for her most recent album, ???4??? (Columbia).
Because Mr. Ocean is an emotive singer who has written many songs about heterosexual relationships, his sexuality had never come into question until this week, when some critics noted the lyrics for three songs on his new album ??? ???Bad Religion,??? ???Pink Matter??? and ???Forrest Gump??? ??? seemed to address a male object of love.
Mr. Ocean had already decided to make his love affair with a man public in the liner notes to the album, but, as the BBC and other news outlets raised questions about his lyrics, he made the decision to publish a draft of those notes on his Tumblr blog on Tuesday, his publicist said. In that letter to his fans, written in December 2011, he said he had fallen in love and slept with a man he met four summers ago, when he was 19. The affair continued, he wrote, for at least two summers.
???By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant,??? he wrote. ???It was hopeless. There was no escaping. No negotiating with the feeling. No Choice. It was my first love. It changed my life.???
Chely Wright, a country singer who came out in May 2010, said Mr. Ocean???s willingness to explain his emotions to his fans, to go beyond a flat statement about his sexuality, had moved her to tears. She predicted he would lose some fans, just as she had in the conservative world of country music.
???It was so emotional and correct the way Frank penned a letter to his audience,??? she said. Gay artists, she said, had a ???responsibility to tell our stories in a bit more detail so our listeners and our fans don???t automatically think, ???Gay sex! Oh my God,??? so they might understand the true nuanced journey of a closeted person in a conservative world.???
Ben Sisario contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on July 7, 2012, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Hip-Hop World Gives Gay Singer Support.
Cali emcee Murs presents the Hobostewd-directed music video for "Animal Style", the Embassy-produced track from his recent BluRoc release Love & Rockets Volume 1: The Transformation. "Animal Style is a song I did for many reasons," Murs explains. "The first was to be an advocate for people close to me who are out, and those who have yet to come out. It's also a love song, which is nothing new for me. But with this one I wanted to challenge the listener to ask themselves: Is the love shared by two people of the same gender, really that different than the love I have for my partner of the opposite sex? And finally, I just felt it was crucial for some of us in the hip hop community to speak up on the issues of teen suicide, bullying, and the overall anti-homosexual sentiment that exist within hip hop culture. I felt so strongly about these issues and this song that I had to do a video that would command some attention, even if it makes some viewers uncomfortable. Even if it came at the cost of my own comfort."
It is worth noting that several major hip-hop stars have seemingly remained silent about Mr. Ocean???s decision, among them Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Drake and Nicki Minaj. Mr. Ocean was also the target of dozens of death threats and antigay comments on Twitter, mostly from men.
Are all these names well-known homophobes or is the author just interpreting their silence as disapproval? Either way, a really badly written piece and Frank Ocean's career is not going drop off one iota.
This guy's career has plateaued, and will now be in steady decline. Good look for him for coming out, but the market for dudes singing love songs to dudes is limited, IMO.
This guy's career has plateaued, and will now be in steady decline. Good look for him for coming out, but the market for dudes singing love songs to dudes is limited, IMO.
This guy's career has just begun and I think a few million men who love other men, openly or secretly, would disagree about how limited the market is....as would the rest of us who love a banger but realize all the bits about shooting guns, rampant casual sex and ninjas doesn't have to personally ring true word for word in order to enjoy a song.
I think it's too soon to say how this will play out for him. I am hopeful as things have shifted considerably in the last few years, but humans have a funny way of being extremely disappointing now and then.
And as for the gossipy, who-cares-about-who-he-does? stuff, yea..but being able to shrug that off is a luxury/privilege afforded to those who are the 'norm' and don't feel the direct impact of a young man going public with this.
Cali emcee Murs presents the Hobostewd-directed music video for "Animal Style", the Embassy-produced track from his recent BluRoc release Love & Rockets Volume 1: The Transformation. "Animal Style is a song I did for many reasons," Murs explains. "The first was to be an advocate for people close to me who are out, and those who have yet to come out. It's also a love song, which is nothing new for me. But with this one I wanted to challenge the listener to ask themselves: Is the love shared by two people of the same gender, really that different than the love I have for my partner of the opposite sex? And finally, I just felt it was crucial for some of us in the hip hop community to speak up on the issues of teen suicide, bullying, and the overall anti-homosexual sentiment that exist within hip hop culture. I felt so strongly about these issues and this song that I had to do a video that would command some attention, even if it makes some viewers uncomfortable. Even if it came at the cost of my own comfort."
I'm ambivalent about this. To a point, I can appreciate what dude is trying to do, but I question whether depicting queer love purely in terms of torment and victimhood and sociopathy is the best way to do it. I would think that people who think of homosexual relationships as positive would most likely be saddened by a portrayal like this, where people who think of them as negative would most likely see it as "good riddance to bad rubbish." I don't know exactly who something like this is for, really, or exactly which unsympathetic views it's meant to challenge.
"Is the love shared by two people of the same gender, really that different than the love I have for my partner of the opposite sex?" I'm not trying to be flip, but I mean, unless the listener can imagine themselves shooting their partner between the eyes in a fast-food restaurant before killing themselves, I think the answer is likely to be, "There seem to be some differences, yes." I feel like whatever good intentions he may have had, by rooting it all in denial and absent father figures and bullying and gangs and incarceration and ultimately murder/suicide, the strongest message in the song becomes: There is something wrong with those people.
This guy's career has plateaued, and will now be in steady decline. Good look for him for coming out, but the market for dudes singing love songs to dudes is limited, IMO.
This guy's career has just begun and I think a few million men who love other men, openly or secretly, would disagree about how limited the market is....as would the rest of us who love a banger but realize all the bits about shooting guns, rampant casual sex and ninjas doesn't have to personally ring true word for word in order to enjoy a song.
I think it's too soon to say how this will play out for him. I am hopeful as things have shifted considerably in the last few years, but humans have a funny way of being extremely disappointing now and then.
And as for the gossipy, who-cares-about-who-he-does? stuff, yea..but being able to shrug that off is a luxury/privilege afforded to those who are the 'norm' and don't feel the direct impact of a young man going public with this.
Agree that it might be too soon to say, but, you're ad populum argument is bogus. Adding "a few million" whilst losing 10-15 million is not a gain no matter how hard you try to convince yourself. It's not a stretch to say that there are far more straight men than non-straight, right? I'm not going to buy tunes about a dude loving/ sexing another dude. Not because I'm a homophobe, but because I can't relate to the lyrical content. I don;t think I'm alone in this.We shall see.... The lack of cross-over appeal is what limits the market, not numbers of gay men. I also reject the idea that gay men will flock to Frank Ocean simply because he's gay.
I'm not trying to convince myself of anything. Like I said, I am waiting to see how this goes.
Do you listen to women singing about how much they love men? Can you relate to that?
I listen to a truckload of 60s and 70s soul by women whose love lives are as far removed from mine as possible....abuse, cheating, break up/get back together x50, confronting side-pieces. I most certainly can not relate to what they're talking about, but there's more to it than that, right?
Unless everything you listen to (read, watch, etc.) is a reflection of your life, I don't even get this argument.
Dudes love other dudes and may want to sing about it and all of a sudden folks are getting all literal with art.
Your reading skills are bogus! Go back and read what I wrote. There is nothing in there saying Ocean is about to gain millions of listeners - and I don't think he has 10 million of them to lose in the first place.
It is disputing your claim that there is no market for men singing about how much they love other men.
You edited: I also never said gay men will flock to him, so I am not sure if you are attributing that to me.
I'm not going to buy tunes about a dude loving/ sexing another dude. Not because I'm a homophobe, but because I can't relate to the lyrical content. I don;t think I'm alone in this.We shall see....
So you only listen to music with lyrics you directly relate to? What do you listen to? Seriously, I genuinely want to know. This line of argument makes no sense to me at all.
I'm not trying to convince myself of anything. Like I said, I am waiting to see how this goes.
Do you listen to women singing about how much they love men? Can you relate to that?
I listen to a truckload of 60s and 70s soul by women whose love lives are as far removed from mine as possible....abuse, cheating, break up/get back together x50, confronting side-pieces. I most certainly can not relate to what they're talking about, but there's more to it than that, right?
Unless everything you listen to (read, watch, etc.) is a reflection of your life, I don't even get this argument.
Dudes love other dudes and may want to sing about it and all of a sudden folks are getting all literal with art.
Your reading skills are bogus! Go back and read what I wrote. There is nothing in there saying Ocean is about to gain millions of listeners - and I don't think he has 10 million of them to lose in the first place.
It is disputing your claim that there is no market for men singing about how much they love other men.
You edited: I also never said gay men will flock to him, so I am not sure if you are attributing that to me.
I need to check my reading skills? Ok. You show me where I said there was no market for men singing about how much they love other me, then I'll do that. I said limited market. I don't think that's disputable that the market for a openly gay singer is limited; at least in 2012.
While you are correct that I do like tunes where women sing about dudes, dudes singing about dudes is not the same. You're not sayng that right? At least I can fantasize that the women is singing about me. I won't be doing that with an FO jam. Again. I don't think I'm alone in this.
What I'm attributing to you is you saying that millions of men who secretly or openly love men may like FO, ostensibly because he's out now. I don't agree,
In the meantime, we'll agree that it is too soon to tell.
I'm not going to buy tunes about a dude loving/ sexing another dude. Not because I'm a homophobe, but because I can't relate to the lyrical content. I don;t think I'm alone in this.We shall see....
So you only listen to music with lyrics you directly relate to? What do you listen to? Seriously, I genuinely want to know. This line of argument makes no sense to me at all.
Did I say directly? I didn't. But, since you asked, I listen to a lot of instrumentals, but as far is lyrical content goes, I don't listen to music where a guy is singing about sexing another dude, and I don't dig on gangster/thug ish either. Can't relate. I'm cool with it not making sense to you. Do you listen to jams about dudes sexing up dudes?
I'm not going to buy tunes about a dude loving/ sexing another dude. Not because I'm a homophobe, but because I can't relate to the lyrical content. I don;t think I'm alone in this.We shall see....
So you only listen to music with lyrics you directly relate to? What do you listen to? Seriously, I genuinely want to know. This line of argument makes no sense to me at all.
Did I say directly? I didn't. But, since you asked, I listen to a lot of instrumentals, but as far is lyrical content goes, I don't listen to music where a guy is singing about sexing another dude, and I don't dig on gangster/thug ish either. Can't relate. I'm cool with it not making sense to you. Do you listen to jams about dudes sexing up dudes?
It makes sense you listen to instrumentals, it sounds like you have trouble relating to people. And sure, I am happy to listen to songs about dudes "sexing" other dudes if the music is good and they can sing. I don't need to imagine myself in the middle of a piece of art to appreciate it. One of the joys of music/art in general is learning to appreciate other peoples interpretations of the world.
I'm not trying to convince myself of anything. Like I said, I am waiting to see how this goes.
Do you listen to women singing about how much they love men? Can you relate to that?
I listen to a truckload of 60s and 70s soul by women whose love lives are as far removed from mine as possible....abuse, cheating, break up/get back together x50, confronting side-pieces. I most certainly can not relate to what they're talking about, but there's more to it than that, right?
Unless everything you listen to (read, watch, etc.) is a reflection of your life, I don't even get this argument.
Dudes love other dudes and may want to sing about it and all of a sudden folks are getting all literal with art.
Your reading skills are bogus! Go back and read what I wrote. There is nothing in there saying Ocean is about to gain millions of listeners - and I don't think he has 10 million of them to lose in the first place.
It is disputing your claim that there is no market for men singing about how much they love other men.
You edited: I also never said gay men will flock to him, so I am not sure if you are attributing that to me.
I need to check my reading skills? Ok. You show me where I said there was no market for men singing about how much they love other me, then I'll do that. I said limited market. I don't think that's disputable that the market for a openly gay singer is limited; at least in 2012.
Fair enough - but I will still dispute how limited a market there is for men singing about men...the same way I would dispute it's a limited market for the thousands of thriving "out" businesses and all the major brands climbing over each other to put a gay-positive face on their marketing.
I just don't see the divide the same way; you don't need to be gay to listen to and enjoy and on some level relate to music about (gay) love, same way you don't need to be gay to have a gay doctor.
I'm saying what has already been said a million times this week, it just so happens that Ocean's letter was about being in love with a man. Had he not revealed that aspect of it - what part of that post is not something anyone who has been through unrequited love, a broken heart and rejection could understand and relate to?
Bon Vivant said:
What I'm attributing to you is you saying that millions of men who secretly or openly love men may like FO, ostensibly because he's out now. I don't agree,
In the meantime, we'll agree that it is too soon to tell.
I never said this - in fact, I basically said the opposite in my very first post in the thread but I guess my writing skills are just not on par with your reading skills
Anyway, another thing we can agree on is that this back and forth is getting tired.
It makes sense you listen to instrumentals, it sounds like you have trouble relating to people. And sure, I am happy to listen to songs about dudes "sexing" other dudes if the music is good and they can sing. I don't need to imagine myself in the middle of a piece of art to appreciate it. One of the joys of music/art in general is learning to appreciate other peoples interpretations of the world.
I'm not interested in buying music about gay love (not that there's anything wrong with that), so I must have trouble relating to people in general. That's profound. And straight up silly.
Feel free to think that about me. That's great that the subject matter of lyrics is of no concern to you, so long as the music is good and they can sing, right? You sound like a Skrewdriver fan. Shit, why even have lyrics, Larry? Why not just have Lalalallalalal--ohweeohweeoh, over and again, since that doesn't matter to you? Give me a break.
I'm not saying I won't appreciate FOs odes to his lovers, I'm just not copping it. But hey, however you like to feel music should be exactly the way everyone else should right? Talk about having trouble relating to people.
I don't think you are going to win people over to your way of thinking by relating listening to songs about love [by a gay singer] to songs about hate [by racists].
Comments
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/arts/music/frank-ocean-draws-praise-for-declaring-his-homosexuality.html?pagewanted=all
Hip-Hop World Gives Gay Singer Support
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: July 6, 2012
When Frank Ocean, a rising star in the R&B world, announced on Tuesday that his first true love had been a man, he seemed to be taking a giant risk with his career.
After all, Mr. Ocean, 24, is a rising star in the hypermasculine world of urban music, where singers cultivate images as lady-killers. He is a member of the Odd Future hip-hop collective, whose rappers are known for using anti-gay slurs. No other mainstream R&B artists have acknowledged having homosexual relationships. For decades, even the rumor of homosexuality had ruined artists in hip-hop circles.
But how big a gamble was it? Mr. Ocean has received strong support from other artists, his record label and cultural commentators, while the negative reactions have been largely muted and equivocal.
That lack of uproar seems to echo a broader shift in attitudes toward homosexuality and gay culture: Coming out is not as controversial as it once was. Mr. Ocean???s revelation occurred just days after Anderson Cooper, the CNN anchor, acknowledged that he was gay. It also comes just months after Jay-Z, Russell Simmons and other hip-hop figures forcefully supported President Obama after he announced his support for gay marriage.
???Ten or 15 years ago Frank Ocean could never have come out,??? said Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African-American studies at Duke University. ???It would have been death to his career.???
It is too early to tell if Mr. Ocean, who declined to be interviewed for this article, will suffer for his honesty when his debut album, ???Channel Orange??? (Island Def Jam), is released later this month. Sales of his record will be viewed as a measure of how much times have changed. ???It???s going to be a kind of litmus test,??? said Nelson George, a filmmaker and the author of the novel ???The Plot Against Hip-Hop.??? ???You can???t really know the real impact of this for six months to a year.???
It is worth noting that several major hip-hop stars have seemingly remained silent about Mr. Ocean???s decision, among them Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Drake and Nicki Minaj. Mr. Ocean was also the target of dozens of death threats and antigay comments on Twitter, mostly from men.
???There is still a very nasty streak of homophobia in this country that we have to overcome,??? Mr. Simmons, a founder and former owner of the Def Jam label, said. ???I???m hoping the support by his friends and the members of the creative community will override it and, whatever he loses, he will gain more.???
But Mr. Ocean???s declaration that he had fallen in love with a man and carried on an intimate relationship for more than a year, which he made in a rambling, poetic letter that he posted online, immediately attracted support from Mr. Simmons, who praised Mr. Ocean for his ???courage and honesty,??? adding that his statement ???gives hope and light to so many young people still living in fear.???
Other hip-hop heavyweights signaled their support. Jay-Z, the rapper and label owner, posted a long defense of Mr. Ocean on his Web site written by the critic Dream Hampton. Joie Manda, the president of Island Def Jam, said that Mr. Ocean ???broke down a wall that should never have been built.??? Female R&B artists like Solange Knowles and Rita Ora published supportive messages online.
And Tyler, the Creator, the shock rapper who has collaborated with Mr. Ocean in the cutting-edge group Odd Future, said on Twitter that he stood beside him. The statement was all the more surprising since Tyler, the Creator, often insults gay men in his lyrics.
The positive reaction suggests that there has been a cultural shift, music critics said. For a new generation of R&B fans, it seems, just as for the rest of the population, sexual orientation has become a less toxic issue.
???To even have a climate where a relatively young person ??? he???s 24 ??? is comfortable enough not only to intimate this in his lyrics but to make a statement about it and put it on Tumblr says we have come a way as a society,??? said Joan Morgan, a critic and the author of ???When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost,??? essays about feminism in hip-hop.
Jerry Boulding, urban editor for All Access, a radio trade publication, predicted urban program directors would still play Mr. Ocean???s songs if he maintained the quality of his previous work. ???It becomes a question of talent ??? he obviously is talented,??? Mr. Boulding said. ???But he is going to have to pick his material well, because some of the things he sang about before he came out obviously won???t have the same meaning now.???
The publicity surrounding Mr. Ocean???s announcement might even work in his favor, generating interest in the new album, Mr. Boulding said.
Ebro Darden, the program director for Hot 97, a hip-hop station in New York, said that Mr. Ocean???s sexual orientation would not be a factor in the station???s calculations about broadcasting his songs. ???Hot 97 has supported Frank Ocean since before his record label knew what to do with him, and we will continue to,??? he said. ???I hope people judge him based on his music, not personal preferences.???
There have been gay rappers before, but most were underground artists who never gained mainstream popularity. In the Bay Area a group of homosexual rappers formed the Deep Dickollective in 2000 and tried to start a ???homohop??? genre, putting out four albums before disbanding. The white lesbian rapper Invincible has developed a following in Detroit. The songwriter, rapper and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello and the independent R&B singer Rahsaan Patterson have also come out.
Mr. Ocean might have been a target of greater criticism, several critics said, if he were a tough-guy rapper or a seductive R&B singer in the tradition of Marvin Gaye. But his music is about nuanced heartbreak rather than seduction. ???He???s never been read as a hypermasculine R&B singer,??? Mr. Neal said. ???His audience is already sensitive to this kind of issue.???
Though he is not yet a major star, he is still a promising and in-demand songwriter. Last year he released ???Nostalgia, Ultra,??? a mixtape that received rave reviews and included the R&B hit ???Novacane,??? which has sold 185,000 singles. He also contributed two hooks to ???Watch the Throne??? (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam /Roc Nation), last year???s collaboration between Jay-Z and Kanye West, and wrote the track ???I Miss You??? with Beyonc?? for her most recent album, ???4??? (Columbia).
Because Mr. Ocean is an emotive singer who has written many songs about heterosexual relationships, his sexuality had never come into question until this week, when some critics noted the lyrics for three songs on his new album ??? ???Bad Religion,??? ???Pink Matter??? and ???Forrest Gump??? ??? seemed to address a male object of love.
Mr. Ocean had already decided to make his love affair with a man public in the liner notes to the album, but, as the BBC and other news outlets raised questions about his lyrics, he made the decision to publish a draft of those notes on his Tumblr blog on Tuesday, his publicist said. In that letter to his fans, written in December 2011, he said he had fallen in love and slept with a man he met four summers ago, when he was 19. The affair continued, he wrote, for at least two summers.
???By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant,??? he wrote. ???It was hopeless. There was no escaping. No negotiating with the feeling. No Choice. It was my first love. It changed my life.???
Chely Wright, a country singer who came out in May 2010, said Mr. Ocean???s willingness to explain his emotions to his fans, to go beyond a flat statement about his sexuality, had moved her to tears. She predicted he would lose some fans, just as she had in the conservative world of country music.
???It was so emotional and correct the way Frank penned a letter to his audience,??? she said. Gay artists, she said, had a ???responsibility to tell our stories in a bit more detail so our listeners and our fans don???t automatically think, ???Gay sex! Oh my God,??? so they might understand the true nuanced journey of a closeted person in a conservative world.???
Ben Sisario contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on July 7, 2012, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Hip-Hop World Gives Gay Singer Support.
This guy's career has just begun and I think a few million men who love other men, openly or secretly, would disagree about how limited the market is....as would the rest of us who love a banger but realize all the bits about shooting guns, rampant casual sex and ninjas doesn't have to personally ring true word for word in order to enjoy a song.
I think it's too soon to say how this will play out for him. I am hopeful as things have shifted considerably in the last few years, but humans have a funny way of being extremely disappointing now and then.
And as for the gossipy, who-cares-about-who-he-does? stuff, yea..but being able to shrug that off is a luxury/privilege afforded to those who are the 'norm' and don't feel the direct impact of a young man going public with this.
http://www.thegridto.com/life/parenting/proud-new-world/
I'm ambivalent about this. To a point, I can appreciate what dude is trying to do, but I question whether depicting queer love purely in terms of torment and victimhood and sociopathy is the best way to do it. I would think that people who think of homosexual relationships as positive would most likely be saddened by a portrayal like this, where people who think of them as negative would most likely see it as "good riddance to bad rubbish." I don't know exactly who something like this is for, really, or exactly which unsympathetic views it's meant to challenge.
"Is the love shared by two people of the same gender, really that different than the love I have for my partner of the opposite sex?" I'm not trying to be flip, but I mean, unless the listener can imagine themselves shooting their partner between the eyes in a fast-food restaurant before killing themselves, I think the answer is likely to be, "There seem to be some differences, yes." I feel like whatever good intentions he may have had, by rooting it all in denial and absent father figures and bullying and gangs and incarceration and ultimately murder/suicide, the strongest message in the song becomes: There is something wrong with those people.
Agree that it might be too soon to say, but, you're ad populum argument is bogus. Adding "a few million" whilst losing 10-15 million is not a gain no matter how hard you try to convince yourself. It's not a stretch to say that there are far more straight men than non-straight, right? I'm not going to buy tunes about a dude loving/ sexing another dude. Not because I'm a homophobe, but because I can't relate to the lyrical content. I don;t think I'm alone in this.We shall see.... The lack of cross-over appeal is what limits the market, not numbers of gay men. I also reject the idea that gay men will flock to Frank Ocean simply because he's gay.
Do you listen to women singing about how much they love men? Can you relate to that?
I listen to a truckload of 60s and 70s soul by women whose love lives are as far removed from mine as possible....abuse, cheating, break up/get back together x50, confronting side-pieces. I most certainly can not relate to what they're talking about, but there's more to it than that, right?
Unless everything you listen to (read, watch, etc.) is a reflection of your life, I don't even get this argument.
Dudes love other dudes and may want to sing about it and all of a sudden folks are getting all literal with art.
Your reading skills are bogus! Go back and read what I wrote. There is nothing in there saying Ocean is about to gain millions of listeners - and I don't think he has 10 million of them to lose in the first place.
It is disputing your claim that there is no market for men singing about how much they love other men.
You edited: I also never said gay men will flock to him, so I am not sure if you are attributing that to me.
So you only listen to music with lyrics you directly relate to? What do you listen to? Seriously, I genuinely want to know. This line of argument makes no sense to me at all.
It just needs to be presented in a way they can relate to.
I need to check my reading skills? Ok. You show me where I said there was no market for men singing about how much they love other me, then I'll do that. I said limited market. I don't think that's disputable that the market for a openly gay singer is limited; at least in 2012.
While you are correct that I do like tunes where women sing about dudes, dudes singing about dudes is not the same. You're not sayng that right? At least I can fantasize that the women is singing about me. I won't be doing that with an FO jam. Again. I don't think I'm alone in this.
What I'm attributing to you is you saying that millions of men who secretly or openly love men may like FO, ostensibly because he's out now. I don't agree,
In the meantime, we'll agree that it is too soon to tell.
Did I say directly? I didn't. But, since you asked, I listen to a lot of instrumentals, but as far is lyrical content goes, I don't listen to music where a guy is singing about sexing another dude, and I don't dig on gangster/thug ish either. Can't relate. I'm cool with it not making sense to you. Do you listen to jams about dudes sexing up dudes?
But despite how incredible straight some are there are lots of people who do listen to those artists.
It makes sense you listen to instrumentals, it sounds like you have trouble relating to people. And sure, I am happy to listen to songs about dudes "sexing" other dudes if the music is good and they can sing. I don't need to imagine myself in the middle of a piece of art to appreciate it. One of the joys of music/art in general is learning to appreciate other peoples interpretations of the world.
Fair enough - but I will still dispute how limited a market there is for men singing about men...the same way I would dispute it's a limited market for the thousands of thriving "out" businesses and all the major brands climbing over each other to put a gay-positive face on their marketing.
I just don't see the divide the same way; you don't need to be gay to listen to and enjoy and on some level relate to music about (gay) love, same way you don't need to be gay to have a gay doctor.
I'm saying what has already been said a million times this week, it just so happens that Ocean's letter was about being in love with a man. Had he not revealed that aspect of it - what part of that post is not something anyone who has been through unrequited love, a broken heart and rejection could understand and relate to?
I never said this - in fact, I basically said the opposite in my very first post in the thread but I guess my writing skills are just not on par with your reading skills
Anyway, another thing we can agree on is that this back and forth is getting tired.
Is this the only subject Frank Ocean is going to write about from now on?
Couldn't agree more. Not enough in the world, IMO.
Feel free to think that about me. That's great that the subject matter of lyrics is of no concern to you, so long as the music is good and they can sing, right? You sound like a Skrewdriver fan. Shit, why even have lyrics, Larry? Why not just have Lalalallalalal--ohweeohweeoh, over and again, since that doesn't matter to you? Give me a break.
I'm not saying I won't appreciate FOs odes to his lovers, I'm just not copping it. But hey, however you like to feel music should be exactly the way everyone else should right? Talk about having trouble relating to people.
I don't think you are going to win people over to your way of thinking by relating listening to songs about love [by a gay singer] to songs about hate [by racists].
why not?