Frank Ocean has shared a new song that is almost nine minutes long on the latest episode of his Apple Music show, Blonded Radio.
The star’s Christmas special of the ad hoc programme aired yesterday (December 25) and featured Ocean speaking with Wim “The Iceman” Hof, a Dutch motivational speaker and athlete.
“Me and @iceman_hof had a conversation some time ago when I was in the earlier stages of grief and I remember marbling afterwards at how his energy blasted through the phone,” Ocean wrote on his Instagram Story. “So much vim in this Wim. We spoke for a while about his work, the purpose of grief and how going into the cold water changed his life.
“It reminded me of conversations in the studio with players I know. Freewheeling, psychedelic, emotionally charged, intelligent and generous. I enjoyed listening to him, so in this edit I just let him speak interrupted. Me, @coryhenry and @dylanpatricewiggins played some sounds underneath to heighten the feeling.”
Ocean added that the new song, which appears to be untitled, was recorded in a single take with Cory Henry in summer 2020. It also included some new additions that the musician had added to it “more recently”. “Felt like it fit the wabi-sabi of Wim’s words,” he explained. “Merry Xmas everyone.”
The song, which played at the end of the radio episode, features the musician rapping over a sparse piano accompaniment. “I could be great, I’m on my way / If I wanna escape, I can escape,” Ocean can be heard saying at one point. Listen to it above and tune into the full Blonded Radio episode here.
Meanwhile, Jay-Z recently shared some praise for Ocean, calling his output “some of the best music that we’ve ever heard”. The rapper was taking part in a Twitter Space hosted by Alicia Keys last week when he started discussing the musician.
“Now obviously, you know, he’s super popular, but I wouldn’t say that he’s playing by what were the industry rules,” Jay-Z said. “He’s playing by his own set of rules – he’s making music that he wants to make, and it doesn’t fit a format. He doesn’t have songs on there that fit pop radio or that make it [to] a billion streams; he just has music that’s better than everyone else. And that’s what has to be the goal going forwards.”