Frank Ocean Essentials

Before he was the millennial J.D. Salinger, Frank Ocean was a Justin Bieber and Beyoncé tune-scribbler and an elder member of the skate rap crew Odd Future. The West Coast collective's Tumblr virality became a launchpad for Ocean, whose post-R&B atmospherics and masterfully evocative vignettes quickly established him as a JAY Z and Kanye West collaborator and a visionary songwriter.