Frank Ocean's next album due Friday: report

The long and winding wait for Frank Ocean’s next studio album appears to be drawing to a close. Monday morning, the R&B singer updated his website with a mysterious, Apple Music-sponsored black-and-white video feed of a cavernous warehouse with two workbenches and a carpenter in it — and the New York Times now reports that, after numerous false starts, Ocean’s hotly anticipated album is imminent.

According to the Times, sources at Apple say that Ocean will release his new album Boys Don’t Cry exclusively via Apple Music on Friday. Sources in the story said a major video and a printed publication — available only at Apple stores — will coincide with the album’s release. Apple Music has already scored buzzy exclusives in 2016 from the likes of Chance the Rapper, Drake, and DJ Khaled.

Ocean’s last album was 2012’s Channel Orange. He began teasing Boys Don’t Cry in spring 2015 with suggestions that it would arrive that July. The album didn’t arrive, though, and Ocean went on to cancel his headlining performance that August at Los Angeles’ FYF Fest.

In early July, Ocean posted a photo of a library due date slip seemingly hinting he’d release Boys Don’t Cry before the end of the month.

Neither Apple Music nor Ocean’s label immediately responded to EW’s request for comment.