Is Frank Ocean’s ‘Nostalgia, Ultra’ Coming To Streaming?

With Frank Ocean slated to headline Coachella for the next two weekends, longtime fans can’t help but wonder whether the elusive singer has some new music in store — or an announcement about some of his older, beloved music, like the star-making mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra. Specifically, fans believe that the project will make its way to streaming at long last.

There’s certainly reason for hope. Screenshots of the Spotify app interface bearing the cover art and tracklisting from Nostalgia, Ultra have appeared online with some of the listings grayed out. This would suggest that the tape has already been uploaded and is now just waiting for the go-ahead to release.

Earlier this year, pioneering rap trio De La Soul, whose catalog was also unavailable to stream, finally re-released their full discography to DSPs after a protracted label battle that saw them clearing a huge number of samples before they could completely bring back their old albums.

Ocean would face a similar issue; in 2012, a year after the original release of Nostalgia, Ultra, The Eagles’ Don Henley lashed out at Frank for including the entire backing track from “Hotel California” on the tape as “American Wedding.” Perhaps his feelings have changed (unlikely), maybe cooler heads prevailed, maybe Frank backed up the money truck, or perhaps the tape will be released without the offending sample, as had been done for other mixtape re-releases like Chance The Rapper’s Acid Rap.

Whatever the case, Frank Ocean fans are certainly excited at the prospect of finally being able to (legally) stream the tape that made Frank Ocean a Coachella-worthy household name.