“Futura Free” interviews appear in Frank Ocean’s ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ magazine
“Hopes and Dreams,” Boys Don’t Cry, pp. 56–57.
Frank Ocean’s Boys Don’t Cry magazine features a series of interviews conducted by Illegal Civilization founder Mikey Alfred with five of Ocean’s other friends in Los Angeles, California, in 2012 or 2013. Ocean sampled recordings from these sessions in his song “Futura Free,” which closes out his companion album, Blonde. The interviewees include Ocean’s younger brother, Ryan Breaux; Illegal Civ skateboarders Sage Elsesser and Na’kel Smith; and friends Ibrahim Hariri and Evan Clark.
“Futura Free” by Frank Ocean at 5:15.
The article, titled “Hopes and Dreams,” opens with thirteen questions posed to each subject. Their answers appear on one of the five pages that follow, paired with two portraits of each person. Ocean is notably absent from the group, although he can be heard answering a few questions in “Futura Free.”
The outro of “Futura Free”—also known as the unlisted track “Interviews”—pieces together excerpts of dialogue transcribed in “Hopes and Dreams.” Alfred himself is not credited for the magazine Q&A, although he can be heard asking questions in “Futura Free” and is listed as the interviewer in the Blonde liner notes.
Twitter: @BOYSDONTCRYANN.
After its release, Ryan Breaux reacted to his “Hopes and Dreams” interview appearing on Blonde via Twitter:
My interview is on the album… I was like 11; my voice was so high. This is worse than my yearbook picture.
Ryan was born on September 1, 2001; he recorded his Q&A at age 11, which dates the interviews to 2012 or 2013.
Magazine scans and a transcript of “Hopes and Dreams” are available below.
Scans:
Select a photo below to view it fullscreen.
Transcript:
1. What’s your name?
2. What do you do?
3. Do you want to do anything else, and if so, what is it?
4. What’s your first memory?
5. What’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever witnessed?
6. What’s the best thing about being you? What’s the worst?
7. If you could switch bodies with someone for 24 hours, who would it be?
8. What three superpowers do you wish you had?
9. What’s life going to be like in the year 3000?
10. How far is a light-year?
11. What have you been listening to lately?
12. Do you have any secret talents?
13. What would you do on your last day on Earth?
Ryan Breaux
1. Ryan.
2. I play soccer and I go to school.
3. I want to be better at skating.
4. The first word I learned to say or that I’ve said was “dog.”
5. When I went to London I saw this tight building I was up pretty high, it was pretty tight.
6. N/A.
7. Probably my brother, just to see how much work he has in one day, just to be in the life of him.
8. I want to be invisible, I want to fly, and I want invincibility.
9. Probably gonna be like flying cars and stuff. It’s gonna be a whole electronic world, absolutely no trees, or the world will be done.
10. Forever.
11. I’ve been listening to BasedGod, my brother, and I’ve been listening to Mac Miller’s music and a little bit of Eminem, and that’s it.
12. Well, not really, I’m an open book.
13. Everything that’s on my bucket list, like, I don’t know, there would be a lot of things I’ll do, probably spend a lot of time with my family and tell them I’m going away and probably… I don’t know. There’s a lot of things you could do.
Sage Elsesser
1. Sage Elsesser.
2. I make love and I skateboard.
3. Make art, paint pictures.
4. Eating chicken and rice.
5. Oh, when ah, some nigga got stabbed by some Mexicans with a machete in front of McDonald’s near Thebe’s [Earl Sweatshirts’] house. (Did he die?) I think so, they ran inside, but some nigga spat at a car with some Mexicans that were gardeners, and they hopped out with machetes, and… it’s a wild story.
6. I don’t know, I got bushy eyebrows. Having bushy eyebrows, being Drake.
7. Probably Tyler, his life seems pretty awesome. No, actually fuck that, probably Dill, ‘cause he doesn’t have to do anything at all but sit in his house.
8. I wish I could fly. I wish I could be a jumper, like go place to place. I also wish I could die whenever I wanted, and then come back to life and see who gave a fuck when I died.
9. I don’t know I’m gonna be dead, so I won’t know what it looks like.
10. It’s very far, yeah, it’s very fucking far.
11. Jessica Cleaves, Friends of Distinction, Brenda and The Tabulations, that’s it.
12. I make music music, I can draw, paint…
13. Skydive.
Nakel Smith
1. Nakel Smith.
2. Skateboard and other things.
3. Design stuff, just everything, like shoes and skateboards, wheels, Chucks, houses and dressers.
4. Falling off a balcony.
5. Friendship and how it controls the world.
6. Best thing about being me is that I got a nice set of friends. I got a clear mind, I think sometimes. The worst thing about being me is that I think too much, sometimes I’m very musty.
7. One day? I don’t know now.
8. I wish I could fly. I wish I could teleport, and I could go invisible.
9. 3000? It might look the same, it might look terrible, everything could be demolished, and the whole world could be over or it could be green and buildings would be very, very tall and everybody won’t know what the ground looks like.
10. Damn, I don’t know.
11. Sabbath, Chief Keef, umm, hold on, I’ve been listening to Isaac Hayes and BasedGod.
12. I don’t think so. I’m pretty open with everything I do.
13. Spend a couple hours with my family and then go out and just do everything that I ever thought about trying, ever, like no matter what it is, if I ever had the thought, I would actually go out and try it.
Brahim Iriri
1. Braham Iriri.
2. I skate and I work at Active.
3. I want to accomplish a lot of goals in life, hopefully be like a movie director or something cool, I don’t know… like a scorer or a composer or a designer, clothing designer in the skateboarding industry hopefully.
4. I don’t even know to be honest.
5. Ahh shit, that’s a tough one. The most amazing thing I’ve ever witnessed? That’s tough, would you say to that? I don’t know, shit, uh, fuck, ok something short and simple: I saw Kanye last month, that was probably the greatest thing that happened this year as far as I can remember.
6. The best thing about being me is that I just don’t give a fuck. Can I curse? Yeah, I just don’t care about shit, so like I don’t know that just makes me happy, and I don’t let shit bother me, and I just try to be positive and just enjoy my fucking life, and the worst thing is, I don’t know sometimes I feel like people don’t like me, but then I think I’m just trippin’, I don’t know.
7. Probably like some kinda monk in like the forest up in China, I can like balance on my forehead or some crazy shit.
8. I wish I could fly, I wish I was really strong an, uh, shit, shit, I don’t know, to be able to shoot fire from my mouth or something.
9. Probably be a fucking apocalypse or some shit I don’t know. Probably like The Matrix, like robots and technology and stuff.
10. I don’t know.
11. Toro y Moi, The Internet, and BasedGod, that’s about it.
12. No.
13. I’d take a piss in a fucking cop’s coffee mug.
Evan Clark
1. Evan Clark.
2. I work on cars, hang out, umm, help friends work on cars and stuff.
3. Continue to work on cars, drive cars, travel.
4. Ever? In the hospital room, getting a toy motorcycle from my mom as a present from my sister as her birthday present to me.
5. N/A.
6. Best thing about myself is I like to explore and get into things, and try out some new stuff. I think the worst thing is that sometimes it doesn’t work out—get into trouble, you know what I mean.
7. Does it have to be personal? It’ll probably be a sloth, just kick it all day long.
8. I wish I could fly, I wish I could swim deep to the bottom of the ocean, and I wish I could sleep without being dead, but forever at the same time.
9. It’s gonna be so dirty, it’s gonna be filthy, too dirty.
10. Like a trillion miles or something.
11. The radio.
12. I can stay asleep, so well.
13. Probably jump off something really high, super high, try to land in like a handstand or something.
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