Later that day Ocean posted the full song used in the video, titled "Pyramids" onto his SoundCloud account. The clip featured an expensive-looking car, and it also contained new music. On June 8, 2012, Ocean posted on his tumblr a cryptic, almost two-minute video, promoting an unknown project which was titled Channel Orange. Ocean performed "Pyramids" during his Channel Orange tour through North America.
The track has been featured during television promos for Channel Orange. The song has since debuted on the UK R&B Chart at number 31. The music video was directed by Nabil Elderkin and featured an orange car with an atmospheric background.
The song was featured in a teaser for Ocean's then-upcoming album and was released with a cover that featured The Simpsons style characters. The song received highly positive reviews and was called epic in nature by several publications, who praised the ambition and scope of the track's length, along with the lyrical merit. The track lyrically contains several extended metaphors referencing Cleopatra, pyramids, and strip clubs. The song explores a narrative of a pimp falling in love with one of his clients. On June 7, 2012, Ocean posted a small teaser video featuring a snippet of the song onto his Tumblr account, and released the full, nearly 10-minute song later that day onto his official SoundCloud account. The track features an uncredited guitar solo from singer John Mayer. The song was written by Ocean and produced by Malay and Om'Mas Keith. Cleopatra should be returned to her rightful pyramid where she is appreciated as a queen." Pyramids" is a song by American singer Frank Ocean, released as the second single from his debut studio album Channel Orange (2012). Because Ocean shows a black woman working at a fake pyramid, it can be implied that he thinks she doesn’t actually belong, especially because she is still being referred to as Cleopatra. This line confirms that Cleopatra is a stirpper or sex worker, but it also alludes to where Cleopatra, or black women, actually belong. To connect everything together, Ocean repeats the line, “She’s working at the pyramid tonight.” Ocean is referring to the “fake” pyramid in Las Vegas, not the real ones of Giza.
While Cleopatra was first the world’s most important, famous queen, her relationship with Samson, which can represent interaction with Europeans, has turned her into a low-status stripper. This description contrasts with the first part of the song. Ocean describes this modern Cleopatra with her “lipstick,” “six-inch heels,” and “panties” to allude to the audience that Cleopatra is a stripper or sex worker. And similarly to the first part of the song, he loves a girl named Cleopatra. To connect these two seemingly distinct parts, the speaker says, “Wake up to a girl/įor now, let’s call her Cleopatra, Cleopatra.” The speaker is still a Black lover, however, it can be inferred that Frank Ocean is the speaker himself. The next stanza, which can be identified in the song by a beat switch, mentions the speaker seeing the sun through the “motel blinds.” Instantly, we are in a modern era, 2,000 years detached from the first part of the song. The speaker then says, “I found my black queen Cleopatra, bad dreams, Cleopatra.” To the speaker, Samson, or Europeans in general, has created nothing but “bad dreams” between him and his lover. Samson, thought of as a white biblical figure, has stolen the queen of the black speaker. To further establish Cleopatra’s disloyalty, the speaker says, “Set the cheetah on the loose.” “Cheetah” can be heard as “cheater.” Furthermore, the line about Cleopatra cheating on her lover introduces the element of race. Later in the first part of the song, the speaker says, “I found you laying down with Samson and his full head of hair.” This line establishes that the speaker is a lover of Cleopatra and that he found her cheating on him. Instead, she is being chased, as there is “a thief out on the loose.” It appears that someone is trying to steal Cleopatra. However, Cleopatra is not bathing in her lavish lifestyle. In the first part of the song, Ocean introduces “Cleopatra,” historically know as one of the most beautiful, important queens in world history. In “Pyramids,” Frank Ocean shows how the power dynamic between Black and Europeans have shifted dramatically during Westernization through commentary from a Black male lover on a Black female lover in ancient Egypt and present day Las Vegas.
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