He used the hashtags BoysDontCry and July2015, and so we all waited. Centrepiece “Alright” is now a civil rights anthem, but To Pimp a Butterfly plays less like a statement than a bad dream: conflicted introspection, vexed empathy and political irreverence meet pitch-black humour that jolts you awake, with the sense that without this music, we’d be lost. Frank Ocean - Boys Dont Cry In April 2015, Frank Ocean posted this photo on his blog, confirming new music was on the way.

Each contributes to this modern classic, as despairing and murky as it is lucid and fireball bright. This all collided with a resurgent jazz sensibility in rap – brass, blue notes, manic freedom, melancholy – primarily via LA beat scene luminaries Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington and Thundercat. There was the murmur of creeping fascism, the roar of a re-energised black rights movement, and its roots in racist police shootings broadcast and protested across an infernal social media landscape. Frank Ocean has cemented himself as one of the most popular and elusive artists in the game, dropping a number of iconic projects, like nostalgia, ULTRA. But with To Pimp a Butterfly, the Compton rapper became a cultural institution, as if summoned by the decade’s converging flash points.

Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly (2015)īy 2015, Kendrick Lamar was already a grandmaster stylist.

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