Drake took to his blog to announce the 4th Annual OVO Festival lineup, featuring Frank Ocean and James Blake. Neither Drake nor the official bill name any other artists slated for the event, but there is plenty of room for speculation with “+ special guests” printed at the bottom of the announcement. Drake’s YMCMB family will most likely be on premises for the two-day fête. The rest of the details remain under wraps for now. The festival runs from August 4th to the 5th in Drake’s hometown of Toronto, Canada at the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre. Tickets will be available on May 24th at 10:00 AM via LiveNation. Cop that. If you plan on crossing the border to catch this show, make sure you’ve got your passport.

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Out of nowhere, Frank Ocean has dropped a music video for channelORANGE‘s “Lost.” Swear we were just talking to this dude on Google hangout the other day and he did not even mention this was coming. Oh well,  the visual comprises a montage of various clips of Ocean on tour, on stage and off all filmed over last summer. Watch below see the singer do his damn thing all over the (literal) world:

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Frank Ocean follows critically acclaimed debut Channel Orange with the previously unreleased “Eyes Like Sky” – a track that reportedly didn’t make the final cut for the album. A song about the universality of hope and love , in “Eyes Like Sky” Ocean elaborates on ideas that surpass the societal limitations of color. Alongside the release is a recent leak of Ocean’s rehearsal footage for the heavily-debated performance of his single “Forrest Gump” at this year’s Grammy Awards. The footage shows Ocean casually dressed and much more relaxed as he runs through a spotless delivery of the song – a visible contrast to a precarious vocal performance at the awards attributed to problems the singer had with hearing his keyboards. See the performance and listen to his new track below:

Spotted at SC

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As Superstorm Nemo (known informally as Hoth iceplanet) battered the East Coast like it was a streetwalker withholding 5 dollars, The Grammys Monster descended on the West in an unprecedented two-front assault on America’s shores. Grammys season is always full of big announcements, big releases, live premieres (and usually big pay-offs for Okayplayer artists) and last night’s 55th Annual Awards show was no exception, even if it felt at times like an ‘opposites’ sketch. Miguel and Wiz Khalifa came dressed as The White Stripes and Jack White came dressed as Elvez. Frank Ocean came dressed as Bob Marley, delivered a stunning, career-high performance from the waist up while he ran a marathon along a desert highway with his lower half (watch below)–all while his Forrest Guts were winning “Best Urban Contemporary Album.” Then got snubbed for the “Best New Artist” category in favor of Fun, which was, paradoxically, a fucking downer chased with an ineffective anti-depressant (“We’re so old!” lead singer Nate Ruess shouted as he held the award aloft. I can’t write this stuff myself.) Ocean was also beat out for Album of the Year by Mumford & Sumshit and Record of the Year by Gotye & Kimbra, who damn near turned their backs on the audience to stare at Prince, who upstaged the entire 3-hour show by saying “oh, I love this song” as he presented their award (below).

So it’s always nice to see some things never change–LL Cool J is still rapping and considering he’s been rocking the bells for nigh unto 40 years now he still looks phenomenal, B. I think everybody knew Drake would grab the “Best Album” title (that’s okay, though Nas only needs 1 mic) and that Miguel’s “Adorn” was the “R&B Song of The Year” by a margin of 100,000 trillion. But the biggest upset of the night was undoubtedly the Robert Glasper Experiment‘s win for “Best R&B Album” –a much deserved look for a brilliant record and vindication for all those who were mad that they didn’t see it here. In between the craziness Justin Timberlake dropped a new song , Bob Marley got a real tribute from Sting, Rihanna, Bruno Mars and Ziggy Marley (click true to LargeUp to watch that one) and Lupe Fiasco announced the name of his new album (bottom). To relive the highlights, start clicking play buttons below:

spotted at MWP

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The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has announced the lineup for it’s 2013 incarnation, which will be taking place at the Fair Grounds Race Course starting April 26th-28th, and continuing May 2nd- 5th. As always, the event features some of Louisiana’s best musicians alongside a great variety of world-renowned jazz, rock, r&B, pop, and gospel artists. Frank Ocean will be there, as well as Jill Scott. John Mayer, who was booked to perform last year and had to cancel to deal with his throat ailment, will perform on the same day as Gary Clark Jr. Hometown superstar Trombone Shorty, will close out the final day. Other scheduled artists include The Black Keys, Earth, Wind, & Fire, Jimmy Cliff, B.B. King, and Stanley Clark among others. For ticket information head to http://www.nojazzfest.com/tickets/. The rest of the lineup can be seen in the full Announcement Video below:

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If you read our Top 12 Albums and Top 12 Songs year end lists, you may have noticed certain artists and projects cropping up again and again. Genius ain’t distributed equally and that’s doubly true when it comes to the videos. Though the visual culture that accompanies music nowadays doesn’t fit that easily into the box of ‘music television’ anymore, videos are more necessary than ever–to the extent that it’s been said your song does not exist online if it doesn’t have a video to go with it. The result of course is that every song has one—even if, let’s be real, every song shouldn’t. So in spite of the flood of musical clips, the market on true visual innovation is cornered by an even smaller cartel of experimenters–not only are some of these creators repeat offenders from our albums and songs list, at least two (Flying Lotus and Killer Mike) also have multiple entries here making the Top 12 Videos a Top 10 of Visual Innovators, a very select club of bugouts who also tend to cameo in each other’s shit. Read on to see who made the, uh, cut and see if you can spot them.

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Now that we’ve closed the book on 2012, we can speak with (a little) more perspective on what it all meant–musically at least. In the world of music as in real life, 2012 was in some ways not as earth-shattering as its predecessor. Yet it was a year in which earth-shattering potential was realized. Specifically the rookies of the millenium–Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar, Miguel, Gary Clark Jr., A$AP Rocky and The Weeknd, to name a few–all delivered complete, mature albums which equaled or outshone the flares sent up by their 2011 mixtape jams and one-offs. Bobby Womack and D’Angelo came out of retirement while Cody ChesnuTT came back out of nowhere. NaS decisively broke the curse of Illmatic‘s blessings after almost a decade and Kanye West made his mostly-theoretical label imprint into a road-ready vehicle for music that was actually good (meaning G.O.O.D., not BAD 25). Alla which is to say that while 2011 may have entered the names of more new artists into the roll-call of musical greatness, 2012 almost certainly added more jams to the canon of classic jams. And this list here is where we separate the peaks from the obsoletes–otherwise known as Okayplayer’s Top 12 Songs of 2012.

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While we’re debating the merits and meaning of Django Unchained as some kind of statement on race and violence in America, get a full stream of the soundtrack below, complete with director Quentin Tarantino‘s track-by-track comments. Call it the DVD extras without the DVD, right down to the story about Jamie Foxx flying Rick Ross to the film’s set in Louisiana, a meeting which lead to the Foxx-produced Ross tune “100 Coffins.” The onliest thing thats missing, of course, is Frank Ocean‘s contribution to the soundtrack, which famously did not make the final cut. That track is presumed to be “Wiseman” which Ocean posted to his tumblr over the holidays under the title “django was ill without it.” Find that included in youtube form after the jump as a special DVD-extra-to-the-DVD-extras bonus track. You’ll have to provide your own commentary for that one.

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year–time to drink spiked eggnog, reconnect with friends and argue about the best albums of 2012. So start mixing up your favorite recipe for coquito, pull up a comfy chair (and comfy headphones) and let the argument begin. Don’t get too faded, though, or let the “discussion” drag out too long. You’ll undoubtedly want to raid this list for gift ideas and at the time of writing you only have 11 days 5 hours 44 minutes and 36 seconds left on the Christmas clock. And even less on the Doomsday clock. So let the countdown begin! (Actually, it’s not a countdown. What follows are the 12 albums we cared about most in 2012, in no particular order).

The post Year’s Best: Okayplayer’s Top 12 LPs Of 2012 appeared first on Okayplayer.

I got to be honest; I’ve never been much of a Radiohead fan (I know, I know. Sometimes it’s like I’m not even living on the same planet as these other music journalists). But this Frank Ocean cover of the group’s song “Fake Plastic Trees”–performed live at last week’s Spotify press conference–makes their particular brand of valium chic feel almost soulful and sh*t. Kind of underscores the fact that underneath Ocean’s obvious Prince influence, one of the major secret weapons in his musical arsenal is the fact that he has resurrected the soaring synth-ballad of the 1980s. You know what I’m talking about; the Phil Collins shit. The Sinead O’Connor shit. The Top Gun “Take My Breath Away” shit. You can really hear the essence of it in the way Ocean recreates the more acoustic 90s-era ambience of the Radiohead version. But historical context aside–and however you feel about the ‘Head–”Fake Plastic Trees” makes a pretty amazing intro to Frank’s own “Voodoo.” Of course, the cameraphone battery of the industry insider who shot this clip died right when the drums come in. Of course it did. Or maybe he/she just didn’t care about anything but the Radiohead part.

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