“Frank Ocean is officially retiring” says Twitter. No facts, statements, figures or hard evidence have been released, but of course, the news has never been more real for many in the Twittersphere. ‘Officially’ is being thrown around rather loosely, as memes come out in full force regarding the ‘devastating news’.
For the 35-year-old artist, his fans simply aren’t willing to see both sides, and have skipped straight to major meltdown following the news of the musician’s supposed bow from music. “Twenty years of my life was about song-writing and recording music”, Frank told The Week in an interview at the start of December about his jewellery brand Homer. “I’d been in the studio since I was 12-and-a-half years old. My assumption was that some of what I developed in one field of art and business would be useful in the next field, but I still wanted to know more about exactly what I was doing before I did it.”
This interview is what started the rumour. From what seemed like a conversation on balancing creativity resulted in the end of his career, and the discussion was taken as Ocean leaving music. The news then spread far and wide through Twitter, as the memeifying simply set fans into complete meltdown. “Frank Ocean what” says one; “Why are y’all saying Frank Ocean retired please tell me this is a joke” says another.
In fans defence, it has been six years since new music from the album Blonde was released, and many are worrying that the multidisciplinary creative is heading down another road and ditching music for good.
This isn’t even the first time that the internet has spread these exact rumours — they did the same thing early last year. Nothing came to actuality, and fans were left wondering why they flipped out in the first place. Fortunately, we predict what is happening here is yet another case of mass Frank hysteria, as the artist is set to play at Coachella 2023. Many are also rumouring that a new album is in the works, as he was reported to be in the studio experimenting with hallucinogens on Blonded Radio. Not just that, the reports of his A24 movie seem to be forgotten, and how excited Twitter was for that. Is he not already working on enough?
So again, Twitter is picking and choosing what they believe to be worth the truth, and it seems a slight sense of hysteria has taken a hold of fans. We can’t say for sure that Frank’s coming back with music soon, but if we are going off the hefty rumours and reports, we wouldn’t say he is kicking up his feet in a recliner anytime soon. And to be completely honest, if he has already been out of music for six years, retirement may have already been in progress. Whatever the outcome bodes – a ‘Happy Retirement’ or a ‘Happy Return to Work’ – Frank looks to be sticking around for a while, whatever discipline that may be.
