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Music

Frank Ocean – professional game changer

He didn’t mean to, but Frank Ocean did an amazing job at stealing Anderson Cooper’s thunder by posting a heart-wrenchingly intimate coming-out letter to his tumblr account, in response to growing speculation about his sexuality.

For many years there’s been intense discussion about who will be the first major artist in hip-hop to come out of the closet. The assumption has been that whoever had the balls to break down that wall would face an intense backlash, which is an understandable fear, given the general attitude in rap towards anything other than macho heterosexuality.

Granted, Ocean isn’t a rapper, but he’s indisputably a part of the culture, both as a member of the Odd Future collective, and as a collaborator with hip-hop royalty like Kanye West, Jay Z, Pharrell Williams and Nas (not to mention songwriter for people like Beyoncé, John Legend, Justin Bieber and many others).

Despite the pessimism, the backlash doesn’t appear to have materialized. Sure, random assholes have taken a few potshots on twitter, but so far no high profile rapper has come out against Ocean. Instead, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons posted on his blog that he was “profoundly moved” by his courage and honesty. Author, journalist and filmmaker dream hampton sent Jay-Z a moving and passionate response, which he immediately posted on his own site.

Odd Future’s Tyler, the Creator (who’s been frequently labeled homophobic for his insistence on using the word faggot at every opportunity) tweeted his support, as did OF’s Earl Sweatshirt. Rapper Mac Miller stepped up to show his support on Twitter, while Brother Ali not only tweeted kind things, but also went off on an extended (and extremely thoughtful) discussion of Tyler, the Creator’s use of the word faggot. DJ Drama also went to Twitter with words of encouragement.

One of the unique aspects of how Frank Ocean came out is that it’s still unclear whether he identifies as gay or bisexual (or whatever). This hasn’t come across as a half-step out of the closet, but rather a genuinely honest portrayal of where he’s at. The thing is, it doesn’t really matter: there are far more out gay men in popular music than out bisexuals.

It’s easier to bisexual men to pass, so in some ways they end up more invisible, which makes this huge no matter what he identifies as. The confusion is opening the door for more nuance in how we talk about sexual identity, which is an aspect that shouldn’t be underplayed.

All of this almost threatens to overshadow the music, except that early buzz is already positioning his upcoming debut album Channel Orange as one of the biggest and most daring R&B albums of the year.

The first single Pyramids is almost ten minutes long, and has over a million plays on Soundcloud alone. Once we get over talking about his sexuality, he’s got more than enough musical prowess to avoid getting lumped into the “gay musician” ghetto. The world just got a lot bigger for every queer kid who didn’t see a place for themselves in the mainstream gay community, and hip-hop may have just proved itself to be far more tolerant than it was willing to admit.

@NOWTorontoMusic

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