The industry would love to ban Frank Ocean?
6 years ago, Frank Ocean pulled a remarkable chess move on Def Jam + Universal Music Group.
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Frank Ocean’s escape plan 📰
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Creative($) of the week 👩🏽🎨 - Meji Alabi
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Frank Ocean’s Escape Plan 📰
6 years ago, Frank Ocean pulled a remarkable chess move on Def Jam + Universal Music Group.
He released a visual album entitled "Endless" fulfilling his contractual obligations to Def Jam & then followed it up a day later with his 2nd studio album "Blonde" which was self-released.
Blonde is now at 2.6M albums sold w/TEA w/SEA On demand.
Here is how it all unfolded.
In 2009, Frank met the incredibly talented songwriter / producer, Tricky Stewart who helped him sign to Def Jam via his Red Zone Entertainment imprint. However, Ocean was essentially shelved at Def Jam until he dropped his self-released mixtape, "Nostalgic, Ultra" in 2011.
The music received high praise from both music critics & fans. It also moved him up the priority ladder at the label.
Additionally, the success of "Nostalgic, Ultra" helped lead to collaborations with Jay-Z + Kanye West on their joint album masterpiece, "Watch The Throne."
Frank's profile was continuing to rapidly rise.
In July, 2012 came the release of his debut studio album, "Channel Orange."
The album debuted at #2, sold 131k units first week, & was nominated for "Best Album of the Year" at the 2013 Grammy's where it won "Best Urban Contemporary Album."
To many, it was album of the year.
Ocean would not drop another full length project until 2016.
Frank wanted control of his art & career.
He also wanted to make sure he was properly compensated for his work.
In a rare interview with Jon Caramanica at the NY Times, Ocean described the process of buying himself out of his contract and purchasing back all of his master recordings using his own money as "a seven-year chess game."
As a final commitment to conclude the agreement with his label, Def Jam would distribute Ocean's "Endless" - a visual album released exclusively on Apple Music.
The visual album was released on August 19th, 2016, and afterwards made Frank an independent artist.
Then less than 48 hours later on August 20th, 2016, Frank released his second studio album "Blonde" independently on his own label "Boys Don't Cry."
In its 1st week, it produced 275k album sales and Forbes reported that Ocean netted over $1M in revenue and surely upset brass at his former label & distributor. Accolades for "Blonde" include:
* Certified Platinum by the RIAA
* Named 2016 Album of the Year by Time
* Pitchfork named it the best album of the 2010’s
* Rolling Stone ranked it #79 on their updated list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
As of today, the songs on "Blonde" have been streamed 3.2 BILLION times just on Spotify.
Using some ball park math:
3.2B x .00451 (an avg Spotify rate and one used by independent artist Russ) = $14,432,000
$14M in revenue as an independent artist just from one DSP & this does not include publishing revenue.
Ultimately, Frank's shrewd business acumen allows him to create & monetize as he sees fit especially with control of his master recordings.
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Creative($) of the week 👩🏽🎨
Meji Alabi - Film Director | Instagram | Website
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