From Spotify Studios, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short digestible episodes.

I'm your host Cole Kushna. Four years.

Four long years.

Any fan of the genre-defying Grammy Award-winning artist Frank Ocean knows exactly what this means.

Four years.

It began the summer of 2012.

Frank Ocean had just released Channel Orange, his monumental debut album that garnered universal

critical acclaim and landed a handful of Grammy nominations.

Channel Orange propelled Frank Ocean into the stratosphere of musical stardom.

The authenticity and soul of his sound gained the respect of his peers and amassed a dedicated cult-like fan base.

Ocean did something like a typical press circuit directly following the album's release.

He appeared on late night television, performed at the VMA's and Grammys, and played a handful of concerts.

By February of 2013, just six months after the release of Channel Orange,

Ocean told the BBC he was already 10 songs into his next album.

But then, over the course of 2013, Frank began receding from the limelight.

The posts on his once very active Tumblr page became few and far between.

Interviews, public appearances and performances were increasingly scarce until they stopped entirely.

Quickly and without warning, Frank Ocean had all but disappeared.

But it was too late.

The seed of a new album had been planted, and for years the world hung on breadcrum clues

trying to decipher just where Frank was and when he

planned to deliver his next album. In March of 2014 an Instagram photo

...