The first time you made out with the one. The first time you heard that song. Lost in thought. Dropping her off. Speeding away. Racing towards. Familiar routes and fresh adventures.

The well-known car aficionado, spectacular voice and occasional album-dropper known as Frank Ocean has been fastened to the automobile ever since he burst out of our blind spot, high beams gleaming like stadium lights, with 2011’s nostalgia,ULTRA. Its cover, memorably, featured an image of a sunset-orange 1980s BMW E30 M3—the singer’s self-described “dream car”—idle on grass.

Cruising in a world confined by four doors is where you naturally picture the singer-songwriter conceiving the poetic new material of last weekend’s convoy of releases, the visual album Endless and the weightier, official Channel ORANGE follow-up Blond, and their airy sounds are best consumed between blurred clouds and a dashed roadway.

You can’t navigate through more than three new Ocean tracks in a row without a vehicular reference popping up, like a familiar speed bump.

Cars are his hobby: Ocean oversaw the rebuilding of an E30 sedan to his exact specifications and rents three parking spaces for a trio of BMWs, according to a New York Times profile.

Cars are his business card: Beyoncé first became enraptured by Ocean’s storytelling and arranging when Jay Z was playing him in the family whip; she’d subsequently tap him to write her 2011 song “I Miss You.”

Cars can be his viral marketing: This nighttime clip of Ocean drag-racing A$AP Rocky and Tyler, The Creator sped laps around the social-media circuit shortly before the new music hit. (Spoiler alert: Frankie wins.)



Cars can be his undoing: On New Year’s Eve 2012, police reportedly pulled his black Beamer over in Mono County, California, for doing 90 in a 60. They found a few grams of weed and cited him for possession, driving with a suspended license and riding with tinted windows.

Perhaps most importantly, cars can also whisk him away from the madness. According to an open letter he published in his Boys Don’t Cry mega-magazine (which hosts more than 150 car images), the first time Ocean tripped out on ‘shrooms his manager rescued him in Porsche truck. In the same piece, Frank contemplates whether his car addiction “links to a deep subconscious straight boy fantasy.” Insert thinking-face emoji.

Ironically, Ocean revealed that he doesn’t drive as much since he moved to London. It’s not practical like in L.A., where it’s a damn necessity. A friend told him his auto fixation was cliché, yet he continually links memories and experiences with the vehicles that took him there.

The car has long been an obsession or status symbol of the hip-hop generation from which Ocean springs. (Remember, this delicate, contemplative voice first pooled into our consciousness as a passenger inside Odd Future’s squealing clown car.) Ever seen a King Tee album cover?

But Ocean’s connection to the metal and wires goes deeper than name-dropping Jeeps, Lex Coups, Bimaz, Benz and Bentleys, or flashing them in his newest video. (Still, his splashy “Nikes” clip features a McLaren F1 GTR, Audi R8 LMP, Aston Martin Vantage GTE and, yep, an E30 M3.)

Like the guy who runs a car service fleet, Ocean the writer employs his vehicles for a variety of purposes on Endless and Blond—and seldom as a boast. Most obviously, he uses them for song titles (“White Ferrari” “Mitsubishi Sony”), but running your eyes along in the interior, you hear him use vehicles to mark time, to place his listeners in a setting. On “Nights” he croons: “In 1998 my family had that Acura, oh, The Legend, kept at least six discs in the changer.”

Endless’ “U-N-I-T-Y” captures infinity in a swerving Honda—“Now forever seems like no time / I mean, time flies when you have some”—and Blond’s “Skyline To” looks in the rearview of a long, speedy journey and tries to take a rolled-window breath: “That’s a pretty fucking fast year flew by / That’s a pretty long third gear in this car / Glidin' on the five / The deer run across, kill the headlights.”

Ocean can also use a vehicle as something to aspire to, the American consumerist dream: “Place order McMansion and two apple pies / I want the Porsche Bugatti designed” (“U-N-I-T-Y”). Or as a sly pickup line. “C9’s with the blue color / If that’s a lease, least it looks good on ya,” he flicks on “Comme Des Garcons.”

When Frank is determined, he’s racing (“Pretty Sweet”); when he’s misunderstood, he’s a UFO (“Self Control”); and when he wants to slow things down, he hits an exit ramp and pumps his brakes: “Now stay away from highways,” he sings on “Solo,” “My eyes like them red lights.”

Frequently, the car is tied to love interests who hop in and out of his life. The young relationship: “Come get her outta my four-door / I only got one four-door / Remember when I had that Lexus? No / Our friendship don’t go back that far.” The feeling of indestructibility that comes with piloting a car that you don’t own: “If you could see my thoughts, you would see our faces / Safe in my rental like an armored truck back then / We didn’t give a fuck back then” (“Ivy”). And the scars left by love’s car jacking: “Poonani fade the stress / Bugatti left some stretch marks on that freeway (“Futura Free”).

As Ocean observes in “Pink + White,” his ground is black and yellow. Highway colors paint the floor of his lyrical home.

“We live in cars in some cities, commuting across space either for our livelihood, or devouring fossil fuels for joy. It’s close to as much time as we spend in our beds, more for some,” Ocean writes in Boys Don’t Cry.

“How much of my life has happened inside of a car? I wonder if the odds are that I’ll die in one,” he continues, before shifting gears to cheeky. “Knock on wood-grain.”

Related: How Frank Ocean’s Favorite Movies Influenced His Lyrics