channel ORANGE: Where the self is established
Someone is about to get their ass beat in Street Fighter. Turn on the PlayStation 2. Get lost in what sounds like a spacecraft taking off. Chuckle a bit, youāve been waiting all day to have a little fun. Choose your character. If you lose, you can always be someone else. Just start.
What am I? What am I channeling? What am I broadcasting? ORANGE. The color of the fruit it gets its name from, the interior of a mango, and the near bottom stripe of a rainbow. Orange is also associated with the sacral chakra, which governs creativity, sexuality, and reproduction. The Sanskrit word for it is ą¤øą„ą¤µą¤¾ą¤§ą¤æą¤·ą„ą¤ ą¤¾ą¤Ø roughly translating to āwhere the self is established ā. This album is a coming of age story. It is filled with sentiments such as āweāre behaving like teenagersā. Iāve been listening to channel ORANGE for 7 years; I can say Iāve grown up with it. At 15 years old, I had a more intellectual nature, or what I thought was intellectual. That nature informed the way I approached art and the thing that it imitates. Iām the ORANGE, and Iāve been peeling back my layers. I wanted to take an intellectual approach to this piece, but itās my heart that compels me to write. It is my heart thatās been listening to this music.
Iāve had 4 forevers that have expired. I heard recently from an older brother that āFalling in love is for teenagers, and love for adultsā. Magic spells have expiration dates. We come down from highs,and falling in love is no different. The first time I played with the magic was at 13, then again at 17, then 19, and then 20. I could be reminded of anyone of those evanescent love affairs when āThinkin Bout Youā comes on. Naturally, I feel the aftermath of my most recent. Poignant lyrics and agonized vocal tones take me places I havenāt been, to the household of summersā past. Summer is the season where all of the love in my life sees a climax. The pain in āThinkin Bout Youā does not come from just looking back, it comes from looking forward. The first full song on the album is the time machine. Every track after is the past, a nonlinear past. Cupid and Chronos are at odds with one another. The right emotion warps the concept of time in numerous ways. Dejavu has always made my stomach tingle.
One of my favorite shows in middle school was Two and a Half Men. My favorite character was naturally Charlie Harper, played by Charlie Sheen. Charlie made his money writing jingles for consumer products. In the golden age of television, we suffered through commercials like: āStanley Steemerā, āWe Are Farmersā. The list goes on. āFertilizerā feels like a jingle or sitcom theme. It reminds me of the Family Guy opening. Such an upbeat tune that I often sing along to and miss the message that the artist is sending my way. āFertilizerā is a song about compromising, maybe even settling for someone you care about. Taking bullshit even if thatās all someone has to offer. Love is madness.
I am not from āSierra Leoneā, I grew up in Philly. For the greater portion of my teenage years, I felt like I belonged in California. West coast swagger unconsciously came out of me. Being 22, staring at my Jordan year from across 2 seasons, I see style as a thing I should be refining. At times I miss wearing tie-dye shirts and bright colored shirts. I wanted to be a hippy oh so bad, so badly that I failed. Or maybe I hit my mark because I did not care what anyone thought at the time. Frank echoes the sentiment: āWeāre behaving like teenagersā. The recklessness, a devil-may-care attitude gave me the freedom to ignore conventions for the sake of self-expression. These days it seems a lofty ideal thatās often preached. If this were a game of truth or dare, being who you think you are is the dare. Iām guilty of choosing the truth. But actions beat revelations every time.
It is not clear whether what Frank sings about in āSweet Lifeā is real. I am not too concerned with biographical details. Art doesnāt care about the truth of this world. Art only cares to create a new truth. Frank paints a world I want to live:
Livin' in Ladera Heights, the black Beverly Hills
Domesticated paradise, palm trees and pools
The water's blue, swallow the pill
Keepin' it surreal, whatever you like
It seems this world isnāt real. But if you take the blue pill, youāll think itās real. Better to live in the dream world than to defer the dream. The narrative of this song reminds me of Prince Siddhartha before he became the Buddha. The song is a conversation between the prince and the king who urges his son not to leave paradise:
So why see the world, when you got the beach?
Don't know why see the world, when you got the beach
He goes out anyway. The outside world isnāt what he thought it would be, and he exclaims towards the end of the song: āBut this neighborhood is gettin' trippier every dayā.
Money has power. The older I get the more the clichĆ© becomes a golden rule. The lack of money is the root of all evil: It's a subverted proverb I know. At 15, when I tasted poverty I tasted real pain. It hurt worse than the summer night my first relationship was torn asunder. āItās not just moneyā.
The piano keys, the bass, and the kick drum hit simultaneously every quarter note. My head bops with the bass. Thatās āSuper Rich Kidsā for you. I was at Tomās place the other day, a friend of mine. We went to smoke on the roof as we did so, I sang: āwe start our day up on the roofā. I have a love of heights. Though I have thought about leaping, I much rather enjoy the close-up of Philadelphiaās skyline. Frank pays homage to Mary J. Blige with the bridge:
Real love, I'm searching for a real love
Oh, real love, I'm searching for a real love
I couldnāt relate at 15. At 22, the search for real love is a journey, thatās slowly becoming an odyssey into the self.
Folsom street in West Philly, it is a small street right behind an apartment complex. That complex was Aspen Village when I was younger, now I donāt know what it is. My friends donāt live there anymore. In 2006, clothes were still baggy, they were slowly slimming though. In 2006, I had my entire friend group close by. In 2006, we all played outside. I hopped fences, played ding dong dipsy, and enjoyed 25 cent Doritos. Life was great. I remember the first time I found myself behind Aspen Village, where Johnathan lived. I was with Tony. I owe that man for a lot of my street smarts. I had never been on Folsom street before; in fact, I didnāt even know the name of the street. I looked down that street with Tony. It was dark on the other side; there was good shade and a few skinny adult figures. Tony looks at me and goes: āThose are crackheadsā. I didnāt know what crack was, or a crackhead, but I accepted the label. Theyāre just adults we messed with and ran away from. I still associate that street with crackheads, though thereās nobody back there anymore. The crack epidemic ended not too long ago, but there are still people who are hooked on the drug. Crackheads are castaways in the community. Theyāre really just my neighbors that need help. Today, crackhead is thrown around loosely with phrases like ācrackhead energyā. Humor helps us cope as a society sometimes. Other times, it may cause us to forget how much damage was really done in the past, especially to āBlackā people. Iām glad songs like āCrack Rockā and Tyler the Creatorās ā48ā were made. They remind me not to forget that the perspective of the fallen and the castaway is more valuable than we know. āYou don't know how little you matter until you're all aloneā speaks volumes.
III. Into the inner temple
Cleopatra was the last pharaoh. A beautiful woman that was able to charm Julius Caesar. Thereās a story that said she did so by having her servants roll her out of a carpet directly in front of Caesarās feet. Naturally, being a lover of the arts and drama, he was amused by the foreign monarch. Many believe that there wasnāt love between Julius and the last pharaoh. Cleopatra was a woman that wanted to keep her kingdom afloat, but I believe there was also love. That is the story of āPyramidsā in a nutshell. Iāve had my own Cleopatra. I was enraptured by her; however, when I began to fall into myself, she fled. Likewise, after Caesar was stabbed to death on the Ides of March, Cleopatra later found herself courting Mark Antony, a former ally of Julius Caesar. Good thing he didnāt live to see his mistress with his comrade, though he did die at the hands of a friend. And frankly, I don't know which is worse.
The first half of āPyramidsā gives a brief history of Cleopatra and her fall, then it gradually transitions into Frank talking about his own relationship. He thinks heās with a queen. He understands that even royalty does seemingly unpleasant things for their own advancement. In this case, heās dating a stripper. Heās not insecure about it, instead, that fact makes him relish the time he spends with her even more. I dated a girl who modeled not too long ago. She posed for the camera and was sometimes the object of desire for the viewer. It made me feel even more special knowing that she was mine. The things we did together werenāt performative, they were real, at least for the time being.
The first step is admittance. Frank never says that heās āLostā instead his female companion is the one thatās lost. Theyāre lost together and he doesnāt want to admit it. Back to the idea about āSweet Lifeā being about the Buddha, Frank, like Prince Siddhartha is lost in the material world. He hasnāt found enlightenment yet. Heās lost spiritually. At least it hasnāt manifested in the physical like how Anakin Skywalker lost his fleshly matter and became the robotic Darth Vader. āWhiteā though it has no words, I believe it is about cleansing. Frank is separating himself from the carnal world and starting to view things through a spiritual lens. āMonksā blends the spiritual with the secular: āMonks in a moshpit/ Stage-diving Dalai Lamaā. It seems enlightenment isnāt about being an ascetic but mindfully enjoying the world and acknowledging the spiritual aspect. Desire is not the root of suffering, not knowing who you are and what you want is.
āBad Religionā is about acceptance. The Most High doesnāt change, but people do. Those that love us today can love another tomorrow. In the song, the taxi driver tells Frank, āAllahu Akbarā which roughly translates to āGod is greatā. Frank understands that Godās love is also an unrequited love, an undying one. He sees this kind of love as a curse. The kind of curse that makes him contemplate taking his own life. At the end of āLostā a voice says āFaith is the substanceā which is a reference to Hebrews 11:1 in the Bible. In Frankās case and my case, faith is the substance that keeps us alive.
āPink Matterā is the reason I listen to Frank Ocean. āCotton candy, Majin Buuā was all I needed to hear. I didnāt know what it meant at the time. Now I do. This song is the resolution of the album. For a few minutes, he ceases to wrestle with his sexuality and emotional turmoil while he explores the mystery and wonders of sex with a woman. Then he realizes that he wants more than just the woman. It was his love for a man that had him torn up in āBad Religionā. This is clarity for him. He accepted and became who he is, thus he became enlightened. The self was established in his sacral chakra. His ability to write from the perspective of Jenny in āForrest Gumpā further solidifies that.
The last thing you hear on the album is Frank is getting out of the car, going into his house, and turning on his gaming system. The very same action Iāve found myself doing for the past decade, maybe even longer. Iāve been waiting all day to play. Most games are better with a companion but they canāt go into training mode with us. They canāt go into our souls and establish who we are.
