Expanding on Ocean's experimental approach, Blonde was met with critical acclaim, debuted atop the US Billboard 200, and ranked first on Pitchfork's Best Albums of the 2010s Decade list.

15 of Ocean's songs have entered the Billboard Hot 100, while four of his releases (singles or albums) have received platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

[17][15] However, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August 2005, destroying his home and personal recording facility and forcing him to transfer to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

[33][34] His first performance was in collaboration with Odd Future at the 2011 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, where he later joined them for their first tour across the east coast of the United States.

"[46] Perhaps this is R&B's Ziggy Stardust moment, where the controversy and publicity surrounding an artist's sexuality and the brilliance of his latest album combine to give his career unstoppable momentum.

Considered as Ocean's first commercial release on a traditional record label, Channel Orange featured unconventional songs that were noted for their storytelling and social commentary, and a dense musical fusion that drew on jazz, soul, and R&B.

He had been scheduled to perform at the first night of OVO Fest on August 4, 2013; however he was forced to cancel his appearance due to a small vocal cord injury.

[61][62] On November 29, 2014, Ocean released a snippet of a new song supposedly from his upcoming follow-up to Channel Orange called "Memrise" on his official Tumblr page.

Ocean's brother, Ryan Breaux, further suggested this release with an Instagram caption of the same library card photo reading "BOYS DON'T CRY #JULY2016".

[69] By August 1, 2016, at approximately 3 am, an endless live stream shot in negative lighting in what is allegedly a Brooklyn warehouse,[70] sponsored by Apple Music began to surface on boysdontcry.co which appeared to show Ocean woodworking and sporadically playing instrumentals on loop.

[72][73] That date also turned out to be inaccurate, though in a Reddit AMA session, his collaborator Malay said that Ocean is a perfectionist, constantly tweaking things, and that his art cannot be rushed.

Before the visual album's release on Apple Music, Ocean had already begun making efforts to part ways with Def Jam, who signed the artist in 2009.

He describes his negotiations with the label as a "seven-year chess game", while adding that he had replaced many of his representatives (including his lawyer and manager) during the process, as well as having to buy back all of his master recordings that previously belonged to Def Jam.

[77] Also on August 20, Ocean announced pop-up shops in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and London for his magazine Boys Don't Cry, and released his second studio album Blonde to widespread acclaim.

Rather than going on a typical promotional tour playing radio festivals and appearing on television shows, Ocean spent a month after the release of Blonde, traveling to countries such as China, Japan and France.

On March 10, 2017, Ocean released a new single "Chanel" on the second episode of Blonded Radio, as well as playing an alternate version featuring American rapper ASAP Rocky.

Ocean's voice appears in the video game Grand Theft Auto V, as he plays himself hosting an in-game radio station called Blonded Los Santos 97.8 FM.

[87] He also lent the songs "Provider", "Ivy", "Crack Rock", "Chanel", "Nights" and "Pretty Sweet" to the game, and sings the radio station jingles.

[106] On August 8, 2021, Frank Ocean officially revealed his first fashion project, "Homer", initially announced by the singer in a Financial Times interview.

Ocean began his set nearly an hour after his scheduled start time on April 16 and was forced to end the show early due to local curfew restrictions.

[118] Nearly two years after his Coachella performance, it was rumored that Ocean, a self-described cinephile, was considering a career in filmmaking and was scouting locations in Mexico for his first feature film.

"[123] Jody Rosen of Rolling Stone calls him a torch singer due to "his feel for romantic tragedy, unfurling in slow-boiling ballads".

"[135][136] According to Corbon Goble of Stereogum, the lyrical "moods" of "Voodoo" are indicative of Ocean's "sometimes-bleak, depressive lyrical tendencies",[137] while MTV News writer Tirhakah Love such songs are among Ocean's most distinctive for how they transfigure the meaning behind short-term and long-term memory, and "disrupt the flow of linear time by prompting us to dive deep into our own memories and feel something indelibly real".

A singer and songwriter whose artful output has defied rigid classification as R&B, he has nonetheless pushed that genre forward with seemingly offhanded yet imaginatively detailed narratives in which he has alternated between yearning romantic and easygoing braggart.

"[146] Pitchfork regarded Ocean as a "master of confessional songwriting, earning a cult-icon status with his enigmatic persona and idiosyncratic approach to pop.

[149] The fashion and automobile-themed publication contains the photo projects from Wolfgang Tillmans, Viviane Sassen, Tyrone Lebon, Ren Hang, Harley Weir, Michael Mayren and Ocean himself.

[152] On October 23, 2017, he made two covers and a visual essay for British fashion magazine, i-D.[153] Ocean's younger brother, Ryan Breaux, was killed in a car crash on August 2, 2020, at the age of 18.

[155] Ocean wrote an open letter, initially intended for the liner notes on Channel Orange, that preemptively addressed speculation about his attraction in the past to another man.

[156] Instead, on July 4, 2012, he published the open letter on his Tumblr blog[157][14] recounting unrequited feelings he had for another young man when he was 19 years old, citing it as his first true love.

[177] In March 2014, Ocean was set to perform a cover of the song "Pure Imagination" in a Chipotle Mexican Grill commercial which was due to promote responsible farming.