Isaiah Rashad says he didn’t get the same “perks” as Frank Ocean while talking about being bisexual.
The It’s Been Awful rapper spoke with his “Cameras” collaborator, actor-singer Dominic Fike, in an interview for Pigeons and Planes, where he discussed his sobriety and his sexuality.
In 2022, one year after a leaked video allegedly showed Rashad engaging in sex acts, the Top Dawg Entertainment rapper revealed that he was “sexually fluid.”
"On the last rollout, shit, I was acting like I was past all my demons, and shit, I was fucked up the week before," Rashad told Fike about his 2021 album, The House Is Burning. "I'm not proud of that shit."
When Fike suggested that Rashad was forced to "mature very fast," the rapper replied that he was uninterested in being "the poster child for recovery."
After Fike shared that he felt similarly, Rashad added that he feels like he's become known as "the Black bi rapper."
"And it doesn't come with any of the perks I thought it would come with," he continued. "There are no Frank Ocean perks."
Rashad added that he's unsure how people "perceive" him.
In 2012, before the release of his debut album, Channel Orange, Frank Ocean came out as bisexual in a letter shared to Tumblr. On Orange, the Grammy-winning vocalist touched on his sexual identity on songs like “Bad Religion” and “Forrest Gump.”
While Rashad didn’t specify the “perks” that he thinks Ocean received in coming out, the rapper had an emotional comeback performance at 2022’s Coachella, where a montage addressed the media speculation and supporters who embraced him during the challenging time.
