One is a lament and call to action about the fall of Africans from being the pharaohs and queens of the ancient world to being little more than slaves and strippers and pimps in the modern world. General CommentI see at least two possible double meanings and interpretations, both seem to have been touched on. The way you say my name makes me feel like
You're wet and you're warm just like our bathwater You showed up after work I'm bathing your body Then put your panties on in the mirror, Cleopatra Wake up to your girl for now, let's call her Cleopatra, Cleopatra
No more, he has killed Cleopatra, Cleopatraīig sun coming strong through the motel blinds No more, she lives no more serpent in her room Our war is over, our queen has met her doom Remove her, send the cheetahs to the tomb I found my black queen Cleopatra, bad dreams, Cleopatra
#DOWNLOAD PYRAMIDS FRANK OCEAN FULL#
I found you laying down with Samson and his full head of hair How could you run off on me? How could you run off on us? What good is a jewel that ain't still precious?
#DOWNLOAD PYRAMIDS FRANK OCEAN SKIN#
Our skin like bronze and our hair like cashmereĪs we march to the rhythm, on the palace floorĬhandeliers inside the pyramid, tremble from the forceĬymbals crash inside the pyramid, voices fill up the halls Just set aside your generic allegiances and try to appreciate what Frank Ocean is achieving on this enigmatic, unpredictable song.We'll run to the future, shining like diamonds Instead of trying to parse all of that (and more) in the space of a few paragraphs, it may be better to let the track speak for itself. “Pyramids” has so much going on that it’s overwhelming for a short-form write-up like this: the Michael Jackson lilt in Ocean’s delivery during the early section, the structural metamorphosis from thumping single into a restrained dissolve, its toying with Top 40 lyrical conventions, the extended and evolving titular metaphor, the layers of instrumentation. While all of that is well and good, in the end it’s all beside the point because this track is its own star. He’s written songs for vocalists ranging from Justin Bieber to John Legend, is an associate of the trailblazing Odd Future collective, has thrown down a set at Coachella, and appeared on Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch the Throne album last year. Remember the first time you heard “Bombs Over Baghdad” and thought, “Whoa–what is this?” That’s how “Pyramids” feels: the unmistakeable sound of boundaries being redefined, of genres being pushed around.įor a twenty-four year old, Frank Ocean already has a ridiculous resumé. Each spin of “Pyramids” moves my thinking more toward the latter option but either way, one can’t help but feel that the sound here is the sound of the future. Kelly or if he’s into something more insidious, exploding those conventions in an undercover operation. Now, many listens later, it’s still difficult to pinpoint whether Ocean is celebrating slow-jam forerunners like R. The first time I listened to Frank Ocean‘s nearly ten-minute suite–the first taste of his upcoming Channel Orange debut LP–I was intrigued the second time, I was sold on its genius. Is “Pyramids” an affirmation of contemporary R&B or a complete refutation of it?