New Music, PrEP+ Merch, And Everything Else Frank Ocean Dropped This Weekend
It seems Frank Ocean is ready to make his return to music. After throwing an HIV drug awareness party this past Thursday (Oct. 17) to commemorate the launch of his queer club series, PreEP+, the Blonde singer graced fans with some long-awaited new music.
According to those in attendance at the dance party, the 31-year-old gave fans a preview of two new songs. Clips of the snippets were floating around the internet within hours of the event. Shortly after, Ocean uploaded 50-second-long previews of new tracks “Dear April (Justice Remix)" and "Cayendo (Sango Remix)” on YouTube.
That following Saturday (Oct. 19), Ocean resurrected blonded RADIO on Apple Music, where he premiered a new single, “DHL,” for its 12th episode. With this being the first new cut from Ocean in two years, fans are convinced a new album is on the way. On top of that very busy weekend, Ocean rolled out a limited PrEP+ merchandise capsule on his official website, blonded.co. The collection includes four T-shirts and a set of vinyl records.
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Despite Ocean’s good intentions, the party itself was met with criticism from people online, particularly from members of the LGBTQ community, as many considered the artist’s access to be tone deaf. In a Tumblr post, Frank addressed the backlash relating to the rollout.
“The pricing strategy behind [PrEP] is malicious in my opinion and so it’s public perception is marred and rightfully so,” he wrote. “But the fact remains that despite price being a very real barrier to this potentially life saving drug for some, the other very real barrier is awareness.”
Read his response in full and the reactions to PrEP’s rollout below:
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