Rumor has it Lauryn Hill is working on the follow-up her 1998 debut, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, never got. It's been 17 years. As this summer was winding down, Dr. Dre released Compton: The Soundtrack, a third album that arrived 16 years after his second. And at the tail end of last year, the famously reclusive D'Angelo dropped Black Messiah, his first new record since his 2000 masterpiece, Voodoo. We say all that to say this: it could be worse. Nevertheless, Frank Ocean's fans have grown restless after a series of false starts and missed release dates have hampered the rollout of the singer's second studio album. Among those hand-wringers, it seems, is someone who knows a thing or two about taking your time to perfect your music.

In a new Rolling Stone cover story, Adele touches on the reason she waited four years to follow her massive 2011 album, 21; her new single, "Hello" (which got the remix treatment from Rick Ross); motherhood; and a host of other issues. But at one point, she says, plainly, "I'm just fucking waiting for Frank fucking Ocean to come out with his album." She then laughs, acknowledging that she herself took nearly a half-decade to succeed her most recent work. His first official album, Channel Orange, came out in 2012 to rave reviews from critics and fans. That was preceded a year earlier but Nostalgia, Ultra, which tied the New Orleans-bred singer to the burgeoning Los Angeles rap collective Odd Future.