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

I'm your host, Cole Kushna. Today we begin our season-long analysis of the album Blonde by Frank Ocean. On our last episode, we recap the

overarching themes and conceptual framework of Ocean's debut album Channel Orange.

We also reviewed the events that occurred during the four years between Channel Orange and

his next projects Endless and Blond.

As you're well aware by now, Frank Ocean grew increasingly reclusive over those four years,

a mystique that continued even after Endless and Blond were released.

Frank avoided the normal press rounds that accompany a typical album drop,

choosing instead to travel casually around China, Japan, and France.

Frank did give one interview to John Karamanica of the New York Times,

resulting in a piece that contains the only direct commentary Ocean has made publicly

on the process of writing endless and blonde.

According to the Times piece, work on new music was slow going post-channel orange.

Quote, I had writer's block for almost a year. I would go to the studio and stare at the monitors and come up with nothing or nothing that I liked."

Meanwhile life in Los Angeles was growing increasingly troublesome for Ocean Post Channel Orange.

Some people stole money from him.

He was unsatisfied with his management team, and there were quote physical sorts of things

going on in the streets unquote. I missed it all, Ocean began feeling isolated, saying,

quote, within my circle there was a lot of places I thought I could turn that I felt like I couldn't turn to anymore, unquote.

So Frank left LA for London. felt like I couldn't turn to anymore."

So Frank left L.A. for London with a duffel bag of clothes and a backpack containing hard drives

of new music.

...