Frank Ocean is one of the more enigmatic stars in the hip-hop solar system these days. Despite giving his rabid fan base what some consider his best work last year with the album Blonde, he's also been notorious for his last-minute cancellations, especially when it comes to live shows. There's no doubt that he's incredibly influential, with his music famously helping people to get through some tougher times by connecting to his lyrics, but there's a recurring theme of fan disappointment that has reared its ugly head again - this time, it has to do with an episode of blonded RADIO.
The news that another episode of the popular program on Apple Music's Beats 1 channel popped up yesterday afternoon (August 20th), sending fans into a state of unabashed excitement and anticipation. According to a screengrab of Apple Music's schedule at that time, the program was originally supposed to air from 12 am-3 am on the 21st. Questions as to what the content of the show would be, given that it was the one-year anniversary of the release of Blonde, were also batted about online leading up to the pre-determined start time. However, as the clock inched closer to midnight, that's when things started to go downhill for fans who have been wanting to hear from fresh material from Ocean.
According to fan updates on Reddit, the show was then supposedly pushed back to start at 1 am. Many people, including students who were starting their first days of college orientation today, were totally prepared to sacrifice a good night's sleep for the chance to hear Ocean's new slate of programming. Keep in mind, this would've been the first episode of blonded RADIO to air since May 15th, so the response for the singer's fan base would've been a long time coming. However, shortly after the rescheduling took place, the airing of the show was cancelled outright, with no specific reason offered up by Ocean or anyone at Beats 1. Fans took to Twitter to express their frustration with the situation, but given Frank Ocean's history of marching to the beat of his own drum, this isn't necessarily a totally out of character move from him either.