Pink Matter

Album: Channel Orange (2012)
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Songfacts®:

  • This down-tempo track finds Ocean singing about a fantasy. The Odd Future affiliate reveals his vulnerability and admits he doesn't have all the answers. "What if the stars and skies are a show. And the aliens are watching live?," Ocean ponders.

    André 3000 picks up the baton with some dryly boastful rhymes about a girl who "had the kind of body that would probably intimidate any of 'em that were un-southern." The OutKast member also plays guitar on the track.
  • Channel Orange, Ocean's debut album, was produced almost entirely by Ocean but with help from close friend Malay, a writer/producer who's also worked with John Legend, Fantasia and Big Boi. He told Complex magazine how the collaboration came about.

    "It was just a simple thing," Malay shared. "There came a point when we knew we were getting close to wrapping the record. Frank was kind of narrowing down who he wanted features from. We knew we didn't want to make it a record full of a whole bunch of big name collaborators just for the sake of having them. We were just really trying to decide who we could bring to this project that's going to elevate the overall project."
  • The chanting in the song is from the 1985 martial arts movie The Lost Dragon.
  • Ocean wanted Big Boi to also supply a verse for this song, but after consulting his OutKast partner André 3000, he declined. "To give away a full OutKast feature on a project that's not mine or his, is not what we wanted to do right now," said Big Boi to Billboard magazine. "Can't have an OutKast reunion on someone else's album."

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