JAY-Z hailed Frank Ocean for not abiding by “industry rules” during his Twitter Spaces conversation with Alicia Keys and music executive Rob Markman last night (Dec. 21).
During the chat, Hov and Keys agreed that Ocean is highly regarded as an artist because he doesn’t necessarily make records that “fit pop radio” or into typical genres.
“He’s super popular, but I wouldn’t say that he’s playing by what were the industry rules. He’s made his own set of rules,” JAY-Z said. “He’s making music that he wants to make and it doesn’t fit a format.”
Hov even went as far as to claim that Ocean releases “music that’s better than everyone else,” adding that his level of success and creative freedom “has to be the goal.”
However, he later clarified that he didn’t mean to call Ocean the best artist in a competitive sense, just that he makes “some of the best music we’ve ever heard.”
Elsewhere in the chat, Hov also showed love to Jadakiss, calling his show-stealing set during The LOX and Dipset’s Verzuz battle “one of the best performances of the year.”
As reported by REVOLT, JAY quickly moved on from the topic of Verzuz after declaring that no one can face him in the battle series.
“I ain’t gonna lie. No disrespect, everyone’s amazing. They’ve done what they’ve done. No one can stand on that stage with me,” he said during the chat. “It’s not a chance in hell that anyone can stand on that stage with me for, I don’t know how long [a battle] is, one hour? Two hours?”
Hov continued, “You got to stand in front of the ‘Grammy Family Freestyle’ live? No one has ever even seen me perform that, you got to stand in front of that? That ain’t never going to happen.”
Ocean and JAY-Z last collaborated on the former’s 2017 track, “Biking,” which also featured Tyler, the Creator. The pair also famously worked together on “Oceans,” taken off Hov’s 2013 album, Magna Carta Holy Grail.
Listen to JAY’s remarks about Ocean on Twitter below.