The song received highly positive reviews and was called epic in nature by several publications, who praised the ambition and scope of the track's length, along with the lyrical merit.
The track lyrically contains several extended metaphors referencing Cleopatra, pyramids, and strip clubs. The song explores a narrative of a pimp falling in love with one of his clients. On June 7, 2012, Ocean posted a small teaser video featuring a snippet of the song onto his Tumblr account, and released the full, nearly 10-minute song later that day onto his official SoundCloud account. The track features an uncredited guitar solo from singer John Mayer. The song was written by Ocean and produced by Malay and Om'Mas Keith. Awareness isn't always what we'd hope it would be." Pyramids" is a song by American singer Frank Ocean, released as the second single from his debut studio album Channel Orange (2012). My ex who I was with for several years didn't know about it when we first met at a gay club in LA. I thought he was dead wrong so I asked a friend.if he knew what PrEP was and his response was 'isn't that some type of viagra or something'. A couple days before we threw the party, I was discussing this subject with my team and one of the architects I work with thought that PrEP as a drug had reached '100% saturation' so far as awareness. Not apologizing for the theme, he added, "I'm an artist, it's core to my job to imagine realities that don't necessarily exist and it's a joy to. "I decided to name, what was otherwise going to be a night of lights and music inspired by an era of clubbing that I loved PrEP+ because while designing the club which is inside of an old glass factory basement in Queens.I started to imagine in an era where so many lives were lost and so much promise was lost forever along with them, what would it have been like if something, anything had existed that in all probability would’ve saved thousands and thousands of lives," he explained. He went on defending his decision to name the party after the controversial method of HIV prevention. Acknowledging that the culture has so much changed since the 1980s, the 31-year-old elaborated, "I recognize NY wasn't all lasers and disco lighting and that simultaneously, there was a lot of crime and poverty and that a huge part of club culture, the gay community, at that time were being wiped out by HIV + AIDS." Some others accused Frank of attempting to rewrite history by reimagining what New York's queer club culture would have been like had the drug existed. "I saw someone say that this was a PR stunt etc etc, pshhh b***h pls come get a drink next time and I'll put several barstools out so you can have as many seats as you need," he wrote.
The "Novacane" hitmaker also responded to claim that the party was a PR stunt. Denying this, the openly bisexual rapper said in a statement posted on his Tumblr page, "Not funded by Gilead Sciences. had been invented in that era."įollowing the party, Frank faced criticisms from the LGBTQ+ community, including allegations that the party was funded by Gilead Sciences, the company behind PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis - the prevention of HIV.
#Pyramids frank ocean music video explained series
The invite-only party, the first in a series of queer club nights, was meant as a "homage to what could have been of the 1980s' NYC club scene if the drug PrEP. Frank Ocean has addressed backlash over his queer club night called PrEP+, which launched on Thursday night, October 17 in New York.