Frank Ocean Is Finally Free, Mystery Intact (New York Times)

Frank Ocean at Bonnaroo in 2014. Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Jon Caramanica for the New York Times interviews Frank Ocean in his first major interview following his hiatus, his visual album, and his latest LP.

But apart from a lighthearted note and a couple of photos posted on his Tumblr, Mr. Ocean didn’t speak publicly. Having emerged from the ether with fanfare, Mr. Ocean returned to it quietly, his mystery intact. Not that you would be able to sense the swirl of curiosity that surrounds him by his demeanor. During conversations over two days last month — edited excerpts are below — he was preternaturally calm, consistently forthright, reflexively self-aware, and wryly funny. This has been the case for years. It made him something of an outlier when he emerged as part of the rabble-rousing Odd Future collective, and an outlier still when he catapulted into pop’s top ranks, a group of people not much given to pensive remove.

Over the past three years, his absence from the pop troposphere — a void interrupted only by the occasional collaboration, Tumblr post or paparazzi shot — has felt like a position statement against celebrity culture, while simultaneously guaranteeing that Mr. Ocean’s fame, turbo-boosted by fervent curiosity, would grow even wider.

Read the full article at The New York Times.