Winning! The 7 Biggest Moments of Frank Ocean's Year

July 20, 2011 - 5:40 pm by Chris Yuscavage TWITTER

The Moment: Releasing his first mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra to critical acclaim

The Date: February 18

How Great Is That? By penning tracks over instrumentals by Coldplay, MGMT, Mr. Hudson, and The Eagles, Frank Ocean caught the attention of the industry and created a mixtape that will undoubtedly be ranked alongside the greatest albums of 2011 at the end of the year. "I wasn't trying to make a record that people could relate to," he said shortly after releasing it. "I was just trying to make a record with the shit I wanted to express. The shit that I wanted to get off my chest." Turns out, that was the best career move he's ever made.

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The Moment: Working alongside Beyonce on her recently-released album, 4 The Date: March 12 How Great Is That? After writing songs for Brandy and Justin Bieber, Ocean got invited to join B in the studio—and posted a flick of himself and Jay-Z's wife on Twitter. "This is the room i'm working in this day," he wrote on Twitter. "Not to brag but man, this is surreal. Like...she's singing my songs. if time were to stop right now, the past couple weeks would be near the top of the highlight reel for my short time on earth." Not bad for a kid who hasn't even dropped an album yet.

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The Moment: Getting into the studio with Nas to work on his tenth album, Life Is Good The Date: April 23 How Great Is That? Nas hasn't released an official album in more than three years. And as one of the first orders of business after announcing that he was working on a new one, he revealed that he was getting into the studio with Frank Ocean. The OFWGKTA singer was, of course, thrilled. "Just played nas a song...on piano," he wrote on Twitter. "In that moment i realized, im getting a lil better at piano. i gotta keep practicing though. yea. nas. like 'top 5 dead or alive' nas." Pretty amazing.

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The Moment: Starring alongside Odd Future's Tyler, the Creator in his music video for "She" The Date: June 3 How Great Is That? Frank Ocean isn't the only Odd Future artist who's made noise this year. Tyler's also caught a huge buzz and made the most of it by releasing his album, Goblin, featuring this song as a single. And the consensus was that Tyler, Frank, and the OFWGKTA family was here to stay once this clip dropped. Congrats, guys.

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The Moment: Beefing with Chris Brown on Twitter The Date: June 17 How Great Is That? Actually, the beef wasn't all that great at all. There were idle threats made on Twitter, a bunch of back-and-forth between Frank Ocean and Tyler, the Creator and Chris Brown, and even an alleged altercation on a street in Los Angeles featuring Ocean and a few of Breezy's friends. However, it ended peacefully and actually gave Ocean's career a big boost by giving him the visibility he needs to take it to the next level.

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The Moment: Flying to New York City to jump into the studio with Jay-Z and Kanye West to work on Watch The Throne The Date: June 10 How Great Is That? This event apparently had such an impact on Frank Ocean that he jumped on Tumblr to write a letter to his "five-years-ago self" to talk about everything that he had to go through to land on a project featuring Jay and 'Ye. That he eventually ended up on not one but two tracks on the project and impressed Jay so much that he asked Ocean to appear on his next solo album is a testament to all the hard work he's put in. "It's all working out kid," he wrote on Tumblr. "You made it." You can say that again.

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The Moment: Debuting at No. 82 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with his single, "Novacane" The Date: July 14 How Great Is That? Pretty great, when you consider that "Novacane" is a song from a mixtape by an artist that most of the country had never heard of six months ago. The song also peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and No. 7 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart. But if you've followed Ocean's rise to fame this year like we have then you already know that this won't be his last ascension up the Billboard charts. Not by a long shot.

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