Frank Ocean Covers ‘The New York Times’ Magazine: His 5 Best Quotes

Literal saint/destroyer of all things evil in the world Frank Ocean is on the cover of The New York Times magazine this week in a mesmerizing #longread, doing what Frank Ocean does best: Being a fearless visionary who doesn’t give a shit what anybody thinks about him, including the journalist hired to profile him for The New York Times! And yet, because it’s Frank Ocean, that doesn’t matter, because his dismissal of likability just adds to his charm. (In the case of Chris Brown, conversely, his ham-fisted efforts to be charming just make him more odious!)

Let’s look at a few of his best quotes from the story.

1. Frank Ocean doesn’t care if he’s unlikable, which is probably exactly what makes him so likable.

That s why image is so important, [Ocean] said. That s why you ve got to practice brevity when you do interviews like this. I could try to make myself likable to you so you could write a piece that keeps my image in good standing, because I m still selling this, or I could just say, My art speaks for itself.

2. Frank Ocean isn’t a big fan of music journalism.

Here s what I think about music and journalism: The most important thing is to just press play… All in all, I just don t trust journalists " and I don t think it s a good practice for me to trust journalists.

3. Frank Ocean has always been kind of a badass.

I got kicked out of every school I went to, Ocean said. The last school that kicked me out had a folder of [expletive] that I had done. They sent the folder in a manila envelope to my house.

4. Frank Ocean isn’t a big fan of his contract with his label, Island Def Jam.

“I don t know where to begin… I think ultimately the problem with it was that nobody was ready to act on anything, any of the language [of the contract], except the language to keep me in it.

5. Frank Ocean is incredibly profound.

We re talking about substances , but we forget how intoxicating things that aren t tangible, things that aren t chemical substances, are. You forget about it. I m saying, you know, love. Power. Money, which is power. Freedom. Honesty. Because that explicit truth I was talking about [his open letter on Tumblr] probably had the same effect [on me] as heroin does on some people.

[via The New York Times]