Contrasting the 4 years of almost complete radio silence leading up to Blonde, Frank Ocean has been uncharacteristically active recently. Ocean got a Beats 1 Radio show titled “blonded Radio” in February of this year and has released multiple tracks via this format. He surprised the world when he released “Chanel” after the second episode of his radio show. Not even a year after the release of Blonde and Ocean was already treating fans to new music. He kept up this trend and released a song titled “Biking” (ft. Jay Z and Tyler, the Creator) and “Lens.” On his latest episode, Ocean released a brand new track titled “Provider” which seemed to be the theme of a majority of the tracks during the episode. While “Biking” and “Lens” feel more like pure singles, “Provider” sounds more akin to something that would be on the second side of Blonde.

The lyrics and feel of the song are of an ode to a parent or parenting in general. The almost random cultural points hit in the lyrics range from Goku to Stanley Kubrick to Jaws give a mysterious vibe to most of the song. If seen through the lens of providing for a child these one offs of cultural reference to provide a sort of cultural education for the child. The instrumentation is soft and sweet and the amount of autotune that Ocean uses is the perfect amount. The atmosphere created is of comfort and love which is a lot of the vibes that Blonde exuberated. I doubt that this string of new songs will culminate into a new album from Frank because he wouldn’t explore a similar sound to Blonde, but consistent new Frank Ocean songs are nothing to be mad about.

Happy Jamming!

Listen to the Single on Spotify:

Listen to the Single on Apple Music: