Frank Ocean is an unwavering creative who has helped refigure R&B and hip hop through his revisionist mindset and bombastic output. We’ve already brought you his favourite songs of all time, his favourite films, and now it’s time to see what’s hiding on his bookshelf.
Ocean has always owned his story and represented the LGBTQ+ community earnestly in an area of art where people who identify as such aren’t always visible. He’s always been authentic from the beginning when he used to share ramblings with his fans on Tumblr and used social media as a force for good during its infancy.
This open transparency has conjured a special bond with his ardent fanbase. Part of that comes from Ocean’s determination to break down the traditional barriers between artist and audience. One thing that Ocean would frequently post back during that period shared the books he was reading. While it’s a simple thing, it allowed his fans to see a side of him which they couldn’t grasp from his music alone.
The ‘Chanel’ singer once opened up about his own creative process, indicting his love of storytelling and narrative. “Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem,” Ocean said of his unique pathway to stardom.
“I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically,” he added, offering a glimpse into the deeper workings of his relentlessly active mind.
“In art, at a certain level, there is no ‘better than.’ It’s just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it,” he added. “Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.”
When Ocean is creating art, it’s an all-encompassing endeavour that fills up every fibre of his mind while he’s in the zone to create with the singer never doing anything by half-measures. Reading allows him to step into new universes, and escape into the refuge of a book.
Ocean doesn’t just stick to one genre when he’s reading, making his collection a truly eclectic one. Whether it’s a biography about the life and times of Apple founder Steve Jobs or a novel by Christopher Isherwood written on the cusp of World War II about the tides turning in Germany.
Check out his full list, below.
Frank Ocean’s favourite books
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
- Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
- Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
- A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
- The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
- The Book of the Courtier by Baldassare Castiglione
- Difficult Men by Brett Martin
- The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
- Utopia by Thomas More
- The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
