EXCERPT FROM GQ – This past December, Frank Ocean got on the phone with Vegyn and Emmett Cruddas, the co-hosts of his Apple Music show, Blonded Radio, to discuss Ocean’s evolving approach to music, his recent relocation to New York City, his pop-up activism in the 2018 midterms (he made T-shirts to reward people in swing districts who could prove they voted), and his fashion plans for 2019. What follows is a snapshot of the mind of an artist as the world eagerly awaits the arrival of his next big project.
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VEGYN: How did you find moving to New York? What do you like about living there?
OCEAN: I like it a lot because I spend more time at the house. I think it comes from living in hotels, but when I'm in L.A., I find myself in my car a lot.… Which is stress. In New York, it's the first time in a minute that I've had my own space that's not a hotel and not some rented home, where everything around me is mine, and that's been really cozy and comfortable this past year. When I first got to the place, I was sleeping in the living room on this mattress Spike [Jonze] told me to get—the Duxiana—which is so nice it has an owners' club. [laughs] It was in the middle of my living room, and I'd wake up feeling unsuccessful for the most part: Because I had nothing around. It wasn't like I had things on the way, either; nothing was coming and there was nothing up. The feeling was absurd, but now I have things, and that's nice. That and having the seasons. I guess I had them when I was in London, but that's almost just the opposite of L.A. I enjoy the energy working project to project in New York that I can get from looking out my window or going downstairs: It's the people, their pace, the unsaid energy.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALASDAIR MCLELLAN
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