Frank Ocean

Frank Ocean, born Christopher Breaux in 1987, spent his early years writing songs for other people before joining the Los Angeles hip-hop collective Odd Future in 2010. He'd already signed to a Def Jam imprint, but his first mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra, came out on his own in 2011, and it was clear he had no interest in playing by anybody's rules.

Channel Orange, in 2012, is where it all came together: an eclectic, woozy R&B album that drifts from soul to psychedelia, with Ocean's keyboards and voice floating over the top. "Thinkin Bout You" is a gorgeous ache, "Super Rich Kids" a sly, slow-rolling strut, "Pyramids" a sprawling epic that refuses to sit still. It won him a Grammy and put him on the Album of the Year shortlist.

Then he went quiet for 4 years, resurfacing in 2016 with the visual album Endless to close out his Def Jam deal and, a day later, Blonde, released independently. Blonde is sparer and stranger, a hazy, drifting record that carries "Nikes", "Pink + White", "Nights", "Solo" and "White Ferrari", and it went straight to the top of the Billboard 200. Since then he's worked in fits and starts, with occasional singles, photography, the fashion brand Homer and Homer Radio.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.