And What of All My Wild Friends
Remembering Frank Ocean’s “White”
During the week, if my workload permits, I usually listen to about two podcast episodes a day. I especially love podcasts that hinge on a conversation or discussion between multiple people where I can hear the fun they’re having. That’s the environment Koku and I try to create on our self-titled show, Alex + Koku (🔌). But it’s definitely the case with Brandon “Jinx” Jenkins and Shea Serrano’s podcast, NO SKIPS with Jinx and Shea.
Perfectly said in their podcast description, “Each episode focuses on a single album and discusses its cultural significance, best songs and hardest lyrics, unknown facts, and lasting legacy in hip-hop.” But for Jinx and Shea’s final (?) episode they went with an album that feels too expansive, too enigmatic, to simply limit it to R&B. However, it definitely isn’t what you would think of as a hip-hop album.
The album: Frank Ocean’s Blonde. A body of work that has strengthened the sinews of some of my closest friendships and fueled the most retrospective late-night drives.
During the episode, Jinx asked Shea, as well as their producers, “Do you have a favorite Frank Ocean song not on Channel Orange or Blonde?”
I listened along as they named “Songs For Women”… “Novacane”… Tyler The Creator’s “She”… Frank’s verse on A$AP Mob’s “RAF”… and “Chanel.” And because it’s my essay and I can be as dramatic as I want, it felt like waiting to get called for one of the teams in a recess basketball game but the kid next to me got picked instead and I‘m left picking grass on the sideline.
Because everything in me wanted to have my affection validated for Frank Ocean’s “White” on Odd Future’s The OF Tape Vol. 2.
Now granted, it’s easy to overlook “White” on an album that features the cult classic, “Oldie,” for which it’s been 10 years since the music video first released and also features a Frank Ocean rap verse that could very well also be included among many people’s favorite Frank Ocean moments.
But “White,” one of the shortest songs on the album outside of the intro, clocking in at a little over two minutes long, sits sandwiched between stacks of high energy Odd Future songs and provides somewhat of a pause within all the chaos—not too different from the way Frank Ocean’s presence often felt within the group.
Even in the “Oldie” video, Frank just kind of lurks in the background, calmly steps up to center screen when it’s time for his verse while sipping what looks like a melted smoothie, raps his verse as if he’s speaking it, and then disappears back into the chaos. But here’s the thing about Frank—even in his calmness, just like in the “Oldie” video as he finishes his verse and all the guys mob him yelling out his final lines, Frank’s music evokes big emotions.
I remember hearing “White” for the first time during my senior year of high school. Channel Orange was still months from being released, and it was still a month before Frank Ocean would release his first single on Channel Orange, “Thinkin Bout You.” I can’t remember if I first heard “White” as a loosie on Twitter or some blog, or if I heard it on The OF Tape Vol. 2. Either way it’s hard to forget the way Frank enters the song—his vocals breaking through first.
Could this be Earth? Could this be light?
Does this mean everything is going to be alright?
Frank’s voice, reluctantly joined by keys from Tyler, The Creator, expresses questions about eternity. As someone who spent four years at a Christian high school, these types of questions were commonplace. I remember, during my first day at this school, they were debating creationism vs. evolution in science class. We would have chapels every Wednesday where students were asked whether they wanted to “give their lives” to Jesus.
I would think a lot about heaven—if I would make it, what it would look like, who I would see there. Even now, I wonder if heaven is real. I think about what heaven means for us in a world that feels like hell for a great deal of people. When Frank begins to ask, “Does this mean everything is going to be alright?,” you can hear the hope we place in life after death. But as Tyler scales the keys down towards the end of Frank’s question, a world where everything is going to be alright almost feels too good to be true.
Frank continues:
One look out my window, there’s trees talking like people
I’ve dreamt of storms, I’ve dreamt of sound
I’ve dreamt of gravity keeping us around
I’ve slept in the darkness, it was lonely, and it was silent
Quickly, Frank realizes what he thought he was experiencing as heaven isn’t quite what he expected it to be. Instead of people talking, he sees trees talking like people. I said yes to going to a Christian high school because I wanted a better shot at being able to play basketball, and I got what I always wanted in being able to suit up in my school colors and play for a crowd. But what I didn’t realize is all the indoctrination—and racism—that would come with being in that environment.
Easily forgotten, though, when I think about the absurdity of it all is how I began to feel more at home with my friends during my junior and senior years, but especially senior year. Which brings me to Frank’s next lines:
What is this love? I don’t feel the same
Don’t believe what this is could be given a name
I woke, you were there, tracing planets on my forehead
It seems Frank does start to experience something that breaks through all the loneliness and silence—a type of love he can’t seem to put his finger on, the type of love that, when you’re so used to not being alright, doesn’t feel real.
During my senior year, I remember meeting Ross and finding someone who expanded my knowledge of hip-hop and love for lyrics. I remember skipping weightlifting class and riding to QuikTrip (QT) in Kaley’s convertible, tossing back gas station hotdogs and cherry slushees. I remember a particular late-night Waffle House trip with Josh and Jeremy, after one of our track meets, where we met WWE wrestler R-Truth and knew we’d never top that moment.
And I remember when it started becoming real that those days were coming to an end. Frank, now, at the end of his verse:
But I’ll forget 23 like I forget 17
And I forget my first love like you forget a daydream
And what of all my wild friends, and the times I’ve had with them
We’ll all fade to grey soon, on the TV station
As someone who, the last couple of years, has committed myself to reading high volumes of books, I’ve had my fair share of moments where I get to the end of a book I really enjoyed and feel stuck between not wanting the book to end and also wanting to explore what’s next on the alarmingly tall stack of books on my nightstand—although I know that book will never be as present with me than it is in that moment. I know once I start something new, that book I was once enthralled with will fade into a more vague space in my memory. That’s how I think about those final days of senior year.
I knew once my friends and I tossed our graduation caps in the air and started saying our goodbyes, all of us setting off to new schools and getting lost in new friendships, we would no longer have what we once had. Although we may have a few moments we hold onto that remain with us, there’s a forgetting that happens—both with the good, beautiful moments and the moments that made us feel small. Some memories become more vague; some fully fade.
Frank’s final line, “We’ll all fade to grey soon, on the TV station,” has always put this image in my head of watching a movie on an old TV set—and you have this color image at the end of someone riding a horse off into the sunset, and, as they ride towards the horizon, the colors fade to black and white before the screen fades to all black and the credits roll.
The memories I’m still lucky enough to have, especially the memories I’ve shared with friends, often play back in my head romanticized in slo-mo. “Last night was a movie,” we say as we try to hold onto those memories for dear life knowing how evasive they can be.
As if he were cueing the credits, the end of Frank’s verse ushers in a barrage of instrumentation that eventually fades back into the regularly scheduled chaos of The OF Tape Vol. 2. But Frank does bring “White” back on his debut album, Channel Orange—this time an instrumental version with most notably a guitar solo from John Mayer. Again, the song acts as a bridge, a temporary departure, from the rest of the album.
But the album goes on.
“White” provides me with a moment where I get to reflect on life, both the good and the bad, and then just like one of my favorite books I’ve read this year, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily R. Austin, it reminds me, “My death, and the death of everyone I love, is inevitable.” Which yes is emo and I know we don’t like to talk about death, or being forgotten, but I guess what I’m trying to say is there’s life beyond you and I.
When Frank says, “And what of all my wild friends, and the times I’ve had with them,” I think about the “Oldie” music video and all the fun they’re having, and I’m thankful we get to make the memories we don’t want to forget. And that even when they’re forgotten, they give life to what’s to come decades later.
