Frank Ocean on the music industry; “You’re going to be deflowered”

In new interview, singer stresses the importance of protecting yourself and your art

Frank Ocean got real candid about the music industry in his latest interview with Gayletter as the cover star of their 10th issue.

Brianna Rhodes

Apr 17, 2019

Frank Ocean thegrio.com — Artist Frank Ocean performs during the 2014 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

Frank Ocean got real candid about the music industry in his latest interview with Gayletter as the cover star of their 10th issue.

During the interview, the widely-known and “shy” artist opened up more his thoughts about the music business and the importance of artists “protecting themselves” and their work.

“Well, fucking with major music companies, you’re going to be… deflowered,” Ocean told Tom Jackson during the interview. “Anytime you get into the business side of the arts, there has to be some degree of objectification or commodification that you’re comfortable with, of yourself and of your work.”

Ocean who is currently an independent artist had a controversial departure with music label Def Jam back in 2016. According to the Fader, record producer and executive, Tricky Stewart, who helped signed the “Novacane” artist to the label, admitted that the collaboration was a “disaster” and felt like it was mistake on his end because the label “didn’t give him [Ocean] the respect that I thought he deserved.”

After releasing his album, “Endless” with Def-Jam, Ocean parted ways with the label and bought back his masters and released his another album, One day later he released another album, Blonde via Apple Music. From the interview, it seems like Ocean still hasn’t recovered from the experience as he continued talking about the subject.

“I don’t know about purity. It depends on what you want,” he continued. “A lot of people I talk to about careers in the music industry, their ideas of success have to do with nostalgia. They have to do with tropes of success, things they’ve been shown over the years that represent what a successful career is. I think that helps you become prey, because somebody can manipulate you with those things. Then you may get to a point in your experience where you become disillusioned with those things.”