Where Is Frank Ocean From?

Where is Frank Ocean from? Frank Ocean is from Long Beach, California, where he was born Christopher Breaux on October 28, 1987. Ocean moved at the age of 5 to New Orleans, Louisiana, where the future R&B star grew up loving music. Jazz was in the air, it being the Crescent City and all, and his mother would play R&B and pop CDs in the car. As a high school student, Ocean worked odd jobs to save money for studio time, and he later enrolled at the University of New Orleans. Following Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the region and flooded the recording studio he’d been using, he put the books down and devoted himself to music. He’s since released two acclaimed albums: “Nostalgia, Ultra” (2011) and “Channel Orange (2012).

Although Frank Ocean is from Los Angeles, a city he returned to after his brief collegiate stint, his time in New Orleans seems to have played a key role in his formation as an artist. Combining R&B, hip-hop, and pop, Ocean sings with a soulfulness seldom heard in today’s musical landscape, and he write songs from an extremely personal point of view. Prior to the release of “Channel Orange,” he made headlines by revealing that he’d had a same-sex affair, and while many in the hip-hop and R&B communities have come out in support of his, well, coming out, he remains a controversial figure. In 2013, he got into an altercation with fellow R&B singer Chris Brown, and in March 2014, he was sued by the fast-food chain Chipotle for failing to deliver a song he’d been contracted to record. Ocean claimed Chipotle had reneged on its end of the deal, and he returned the money he’d been advanced.

Whether you want to say Frank Ocean is from Los Angeles or New Orleans, the fact remains he comes from places with rich musical backgrounds. As everyone knows, Snoop Dogg hails from Long Beach, while New Orleans can lay claim to everyone from Louis Armstrong to Lil Wayne. Somehow, that all factors into what Ocean does, as do numerous other influences he’s accumulated over the years.