12. Frank OceanChannel Orange
I don’t remember how I discovered Channel Orange. I think it was just an advertisement, to be honest, on iTunes or something. I kept seeing Frank Ocean Frank Ocean Frank Ocean, and I was like who the FUCK is Frank Ocean? I scrolled to listen to a random song, and it was ’Bad Religion’.
It brought me right back to a night in New York City around 2001, when I was having a really spiritually frightening time. I was basically running for help, running from this apartment, from people that were not good, and I ran into the street. Hearing ‘Bad Religion’ brought me right back to that night. Just hearing his story about running from the demons, that first line – "Taxi driver/Be my shrink for the hour" – it was like an arrow, an arrow that I’d felt before. You know, ohhhhhhh, this person’s on the map too, got it. That was a real good thing to come into my life. His emotional depth, his vulnerability in delivering his struggle, on such a personal level, with this beautiful, elegant, unapologetic creativity, originality, and this sort of gracious manner, is just mesmerising. His gift is very potent.
