On Friday, Frank Ocean surprised fans with the release of his latest single, “Chanel.” The track, which comes just a few weeks after the release of his Calvin Harris and Migos collab “Slide,” is the New Orleans native’s first solo single since he dropped his 2016 albums Endless and Blonde.

The song opens with a striking set of lyrics:

Although it’s one of the more front-and-center moments, “Chanel” is hardly the first time that Frank Ocean has explored queer themes in his music. Ever since he revealed that he was involved in a relationship with another man in an emotional Tumblr post back in July 2012, he’s infused his music with lyrics and themes addressing his sexuality—and the way in which it intersects with and complicates his racial identity as a black man—in ways both subtle and not-so-subtle. Genius rounded up a comprehensive narrative of the evolution of queer themes in Frank Ocean’s music:

Well before his Tumblr letter, Ocean openly supported the LGBTQ community. On “We All Try,” the third track from his 2011 debut mixtape nostalgia, ULTRA, he voiced support for gay marriage four years before it became legal nationwide:

He dropped “Thinkin' Bout You,” the lead single from his much-anticipated debut album Channel Orange, on April 17, 2012, three months before his Tumblr letter. Ocean keeps the gender references neutral on the track, but includes a clever bit of wordplay on the first verse that gives “boy” a double meaning:

Later in the song, he addresses his first love:

At this point in his career, fans didn’t know who he was referring to, but his Tumblr post would later make it clear that the song is about a man.

He played with the idea of sexuality on other people’s records, too. In May 2012, he sang this line on Odd Future’s posse track “Oldie”:

Ocean originally planned to address his lyrics in Channel Orange’s liner notes, but blogs began openly speculating about his sexuality after a June 2012 listening session. They also re-contextualized the blurred gender roles on “Forrest Gump,” which he had premiered at Coachella a few months beforehand. He decided to publish his Tumblr letter two weeks before the release of Channel Orange. The night the album dropped, Frank appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon to debut the song “Bad Religion,” which contains the most overt discussion of a gay relationship on the album. On the chorus, he sings:

He compares his one-sided love with the obsessive nature of a cult. The song works on another level, however, as Frank delves into the LGBTQ community’s troubled relationship with organized religion. On the outro, he notes that only a “bad religion” could make him feel so poorly about himself, which seems to be a commentary on how many religions treat LGBTQ people:

This is a particular concern for LGBTQ people of color, as non-white communities in America are more religious than the population as a whole. Churches play an important role in community life for many black people in the U.S., and Frank challenges the ways in which they can isolate and reject LGBTQ people.

Channel Orange ends with the song “Forrest Gump,” which draws inspiration from the 1994 Tom Hanks film of the same name. On the song, Frank sings from the perspective of Forrest’s love interest, Jenny. This gives the entire song a queer bent, with Frank singing about loving a man, but from the perspective of a woman:

After the release of Channel Orange, Frank spent the better part of the next few years out of the spotlight. He still dropped some music, but largely eschewed the fame that followed him with his album’s success.

Frank made a brief but important return in June 21, 2016 after the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fl., when he spoke out against institutional homophobia in our society with an emotional Tumblr post, reflecting a similar message to that of “Bad Religion.” In the note, he wrote:

I heard my pastor speak for God too, quoting scripture from his book. Words like abomination popped off my skin like hot grease as he went on to describe a lake of fire that God wanted me in. I heard on the news that the aftermath of a hate crime left piles of bodies on a dance floor this month. I heard the gunman feigned dead among all the people he killed. I heard the news say he was one of us. I was six years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a faggot as he dragged me out a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn’t be served because she was dirty.

Just two months later, Frank dropped Endless and Blonde, a pair of albums sold with the phrase, “I’ve got two versions.”

The concept of duality runs deep through both albums, and seems to play on Frank’s sexuality—which he has never exactly defined. The queer themes on the albums are both more explicit and more nuanced than his previous work. The releases were accompanied by a literary magazine titled Boys Don’t Cry, a play on the concept of traditional masculinity that’s also infused in both albums. The title is particularly meant as a challenge to the hyper-masculinity of black American culture, which traces its roots to historic racism and results in black LGBTQ youth feeling less comfortable coming out due to difficulties dealing with the intersectional oppression they face.

On Endless‘ “U-N-I-T-Y,” Frank sings about a man:

Just moments later, on “Ambience 001 – In a Certain Way,” he includes a sample of House Of LaBeija founder Crystal LaBeija, whose organization is a historic force in LGBTQ ballroom culture. It’s particularly known for promoting drag queens of color in Harlem at a time when they faced discrimination not only from outside society, but also from whites within their own community. The sample comes from the 1968 documentary The Queen, which follows a trio of drag queens as they compete in the Miss All-America Camp Beauty Pageant.

Even song titles add to the theme, with the track “Comme Des Garçons” translating to “Like Boys.” On this song, too, the concept of duality comes up:

Had them sailors on his thighs

When he’s lit he show ‘em

Kept it faded on the side

We were seeing someone

We was dating on the side

He was seeing double

He carries these same ideas over to Blonde. On the song “Skyline To,” Frank returns to the idea of religious condemnation of homosexuality while singing about a sexual experience with another man:

Frank was raised in the South, where saying someone has “sugar in their step” or “sugar in their tank” is slang for calling them gay. At the end of “Pretty Sweet,” which seems to feature Frank wrestling with the idea of coming out, a group of taunting schoolchildren sing the lines:

In perhaps the most explicitly queer moment on the album, Frank sings about a blind date with another guy on “Good Guy”:

At the end of the track, Frank discovers that his date is struggling with his coming to terms with his own sexuality:

All of this brings us back to “Chanel,” which continues Blonde and Endless‘ themes of duality, challenging notions of masculinity, and being unafraid to include strikingly queer lyrics in a major release:

You can read all the lyrics to Frank Ocean’s “Chanel” on Genius now.