How dare you just be excellent?” The Rock quote is from a 2012 profile of the reclusive D’Angelo, who felt compelled to release his first album in 14 years following the shooting of Michael Brown the moment spurred him on.įaced with a hellish loop of police brutality, other musical leaders like Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé came forth with brilliant righteousness as well. “You represent the race, and you have responsibilities that go beyond your art. “Black stardom is rough,” Chris Rock once said. There are precedents for this sort of thing, for disappearances, for the self-implosion of black genius. He could be the dynamic human of the future, exploding age-old binaries with an eloquent note, melting racial divisions with a devastating turn of phrase or quick flit to falsetto. Then he became the story-an avatar for all of our fluid modern ideals. At first, Frank Ocean was simply a great storyteller.
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