In lieu of that elusive new Frank Ocean album, please enjoy this old footage of him singing at his high school graduation.

Ocean graduated John Ehret High School in New Orleans in 2005, 17 long years ago. Twitter user @BrentonBlanchet shared the footage of his graduation from back then on social media after discovering it on YouTube last week. It was seemingly posted there by Daymond Burditt, who apparently was on the basketball team at John Ehret.

In front of a huge audience of family and fellow classmates, Ocean, going by his real name Christopher Breaux then, soulfully sings the school’s turgid alma mater song.

Everyone looks tired and bored (high school graduations are usually tedious affairs), unaware of the supreme future talent performing onstage.

As Ocean news and history archive @blongedblog points out, “it’s a safe bet” that this is the earliest footage available of the artist. “Not a lot of footage prior to 2008/9 when he began writing professionally and working with MIDI Mafia,” the blog explains.

The footage has unsurprisingly gone down well with Ocean fans. “I wonder if this girl knows who she introduced now,” @BrentonBlanchet joked.

“F to the guy yawning in the audience,” wrote someone. “they all experienced a frank ocean CONCERT BEFORE I DID AND HALF LOOK UNGRATEFUL,” bemoaned someone else. “he sounds nervous tbh,” someone fairly pointed out. You try singing a terrible song in front of a room of bored teenagers.

If we could just get that new album now, that would be great. Ocean has been teasing fans about the long-awaited follow-up to 2016’s Blonde for a while now, with no concrete date set.

The singer has been confirmed to headline Coachella in 2023 though, which raises the strong possibility of new music arriving before the festival.

For more on this topic, follow the Hip Hop Observer.

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