The ever-mysterious musical genius is back with a brand new single, new episode of his blonded RADIO show, and a possible hint at a new album on the way. ‘DHL’ was released on October 19th, 2019. The track is a definite shift from Ocean’s previous work on Blonde and Channel ORANGE, and is a 4 minute drugged out, murky rap track, reminiscent of some of A$AP Rocky’s older work on LIVE.LOVE.A$AP.
Many fans have theorized that the 13 images on the single artwork are hinting at a new album, and the fourth image being the cover for the ‘DHL’ single. It makes sense, as Frank hasn’t released a project since 2016’s masterpiece Blonde, as well as the visual album Endless, which saw a physical release around late 2017.
Ocean recently had an interview with W Magazine in late September, where he talked about his previous albums, new music, what he’s been up to in his personal life, and more. He didn’t explicitly state anything about dropping new music any time soon, but clearly, this new single says otherwise.
One downside of the track is that from first listen, it mostly feels like a four minute riff on a spacey beat. However, after repeated listens, the cloudy aura almost envelops you to keep listening. For me personally, the song grew on me a lot. The criticisms of the song are completely understandable however.
Alongside ‘DHL’, Ocean also released some merch, which included some Blonde logo T-shirts, as well as 7” vinyls for Cayendo and Dear April, the two other tracks which were premiered at Ocean’s exclusive NYC party, which he dubbed PrEP+, which is a reference to the medicine, pre-exposure prophylaxis. T-shirts were also released for PrEP+. There was some controversy surrounding the event, and some even speculate that the track release was simply a diversion from the haters.
Regardless of the context behind the new track’s release, eager Frank Ocean fans such as myself are happy to have new music nonetheless, especially since Ocean has been quiet ever since his cover of ‘Moon River’ back in February of 2018. Frank has made no official statement on an album rollout, but we hope to see more news soon from the enigmatic musical artist.
LISTEN TO/STREAM DHL HERE:
Written by: John Yu (@stimyulus)