Remembrances and tributes weighed by confessions of shock and teary-eyed emojis continued to flood the net in the memory of Prince on Thursday afternoon. The title "King" anchored the posts of a great many artists who've given statements to honor him in his passing, as his music is being cited as a source of influence for the past couple of generations of musicians. Grammy Award-winning crooner Frank Ocean is one of the artists who attested to The Purple One's impact, not only on his body of work, but on his development as a human being. In an open letter he shared on Tumblr, Ocean declares himself "proud to be a Prince fan(stan) for life," and goes beyond the music to explain how Prince's demonstratively different model of masculinity inspired him "to be more daring and intuitive."
The Odd Future singer, whose own singing style is reminiscent of Prince, alters between baritone and falsetto, called "When You Were Mine" one of his favorite songs, and recounted being too nervous to approach when he had the chance to meet him. The letter then went on to evoke some of the characteristics that gave the man born Prince Rogers Nelson his iconic presence; his clothes, his hair, his walk, his guitar and his primal scream. "He learned early on how little value to assign to someone else’s opinion of you," Frank wrote.
"He was a straight black man who played his first televised set in bikini bottoms and knee high heeled boots, epic," Frank said. "He made me feel more comfortable with how I identify sexually simply by his display of freedom from and irreverence for obviously archaic ideas like gender conformity etc."
Source: complex.com
