Frank Ocean is clearing the air about the cease-and-desist letter he sent to Travis Scott over his song “Carousel.’ Ocean says it’s all about social issues.
Last week, several outlets reported Scott received a cease-and-desist from Ocean claiming his voice was tampered with on Scott’s track “Carousel” on his new album “Astroworld.” However, Oceans says that issue was resolved “weeks ago” and the two are on good terms. The actual issue, Ocean explained in a post, was Travis’ views on social issues.
Ocean took to Tumblr and shared his side on the matter. “I think the song sounds cool, I did it in like 20 minutes and the mix sounds the way Travis wanted it to sounds for his record,” the singer wrote with the help of emojis. “I also approved it before it came out so the cease and desist wasn’t about [music] it was about [LGBTQ+]. Me and Travis resolved it amongst ourselves weeks ago.”
By LGBTQ, Ocean may be referring to the removal of trans-model #AmandaLepore from the album cover, which aside from Ocean and Scott’s incident, caused a lot of backlash from the LGBTQ community and its supporters. Many fired back at Scott by calling the edit transphobic.
However, Scott reassured everyone that he had no ill intentions. In a statement on Twitter he wrote, “ASTROWORLD IS ABOUT LOVE AND EXPRESSION NOT HATE,” he wrote at the time. “I want to use my voice to make it clear that everyone on this planet is as equal and f***ing awesome to the next,” he said in agreement with LaChapelle, that Lepore did “upstage everyone.”
