In October of 2020, Frank hosted a PrEP+ party in New York City on the opening night of a queer club. It was intended to “pay homage to what could have been of the 1908s’ NYC club scene if (HIV prevention drugs) had been invented in that area. The name was a reference to prophylaxis, a drug that helps prevents AIDS.
At the party, Frank debuted some new music, though all most of the world heard was some snippets of it on social media. Of course, with Frank’s reputation, we had no idea when we would actually hear it in studio form, if ever. But the next day, more good news came.
Frank updated his website with new merch and vinyl, the latter of which was for the songs that he played the previous night. With them expected to ship 8-12 weeks from the date of the order, it was as close to a confirmation of new music that Frank fans had gotten in a while.
Later that week, it was announced that blonded RADIO 008 was happening. This was big news for fans because it was the first episode of the year and a staple of the show was Frank debuting a new song of his at the end. That was the way that fans got ‘Chanel’, ‘Provider’, ‘Biking’ and ‘Lens’, the post-Blonde loosies. The show went live on Beats and fans rejoiced when Frank’s brand new single ‘DHL’ played. As far as his fans were concerned, the album’s campaign was upon us.
At another PrEP+ party a few days later, Frank debuted even more music, this time a remix of SZA’s ‘The Weekend’. At the next party, he debuted a song with Skepta. Fans had so much music they didn’t know what to do with it all. Then came more.
In the early hours of the morning, Frank officially released another single, ‘In My Room’. It was more upbeat than ‘DHL’, but still far from the club music that fans had heard at the parties.
In January of 2020, after Frank had signed a publishing deal with Warner Chappell, Coachella revealed their line up. Frank Ocean was the headliner on the final day, which fans took to mean that the new album had to be out before April when the festival was set to take place. Of course, we know what happened next.
It’s somewhat still up in the air, but many believe that the parties, the new music and the merch was all part of the rollout to his brand-new album that was put on hold by the pandemic. Whenever we get his new album, who knows if it will even be the same album from nearly two years ago?