Frank Ocean continues his sold run on “Saturday Night Live” with a new video for his song “Pyramids.” Ocean’s rising career follows years when he worked as a songwriter for such artists as Brandy, Justin Bieber and John Legend.
Ocean, 24, had his coming out party, so to speak, on SNL last weekend. He performed two songs, “Thinking About You” and a shortened version of “Pyramids.”
His debut studio album, Channel Orange, was released in July as a digital download exclusively on iTunes and was released as a CD the following week. Three songs off the album have charted as singles, the two he performed on SNL and “Sweet Life.”
His rise in the music industry has taken a circuitous route. He was raised in New Orleans, but Hurricane Katrina destroyed his home and a studio he’d created. So he moved to Los Angeles and got a job composing music. Despite success writing for top artists, he wanted a career of his own.
“There was a point where I was composing for other people, and it might have been comfy to continue to do that and enjoy that income stream and the anonymity. But that’s not why I moved away from school and away from family,” he told BBC radio.
His mixed tape Nostalgia, Ultra, was hailed by critics and led to a recording contract. His music reflects jazz influences which he picked up while growing up in New Orleans.
His new video is a bit of an opus. At eight minutes in length it’s virtually a short movie. Ocean is featured taking a cross-country motorcycle trip. He’s mostly traversing a desert where he goes from a Las Vegas strip club to Egypt’s pyramids.
In another coming out of sorts, Ocean became the first hip hop artist to reveal he is bi-sexual.
Check out the video below and and click here to follow TheImproper on Twitter for more music updates.
