![]() ![]() We cannot escape the male gaze, but we can applaud Frank for giving our Cleopatra agency as she moves from past to present. We cannot escape the fact that Frank is a man looking at a woman. There is, of course, the complication of desire. Frank attempts to note how desire and strength weave together to create something timeless and irreverent. The supposition here is that Cleopatra can never really die, much like desire can never really die, much like Black women themselves are eternal. Frank could have concluded the song there, but he chose to continue the history of Cleopatra, of the Black woman. After the first half of the song, our Cleopatra dies as she does in myth, by the bite of a poisonous serpent. ![]() Instead, Frank chose to sew two halves together to make one astounding whole. “Pyramids” could have been released as two complementary songs on channel ORANGE. ![]() He isn’t just huffing for the sake of hearing his voice: Frank’s layering images and timelines to incredible heights. Frank’s story necessitates its lengthy structure. Frank has too much ground to cover, too much of the world to uncover. While Frank follows the time-traveling Cleopatra, we realize “Pyramids” could have never been a three-minute outing. We could never flick past Frank’s roving tales. Or, worse yet, we skip the song entirely. We wait around, wondering when the song will come to its natural end. Of course, not all songs deserve to be as long as “Pyramids.” More often than not, a song of great length feels self-indulgent to a fault. We’re waiting for his next written turn and Cleopatra’s character development, waiting for the next flip of Frank’s cadence, waiting for the next layer of production to unveil itself and stun us. Just shy of 10 minutes, Frank runs the risk of losing us at any moment. Impressive, too, is the way Frank keeps us on the edge of our seats. And throughout this endearing history of the way Black women embody and lord over desire, Frank Ocean slips between ballad-like singing and lilting raps. There are African jewels, and there are pimps. In all, our Cleopatra represents strength and desire, and the enduring interconnectedness of these two things. The morphing Cleopatra was once a queen, and in modern times, is a sex worker. The story of “Pyramids” is well-known and easily understood. ![]()
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