Super Rich Kids

Album: Channel Orange (2012)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song from Frank Ocean's debut album, Channel Orange, finds him highlighting absentee parents too busy earning their riches to raise their children. "The maids come around too much. Parents never come around often enough," the New Orleans-raised Ocean sings. Later on it segues into a chorus where Ocean lifts some lyrics and the vocal melody from Mary J. Blige's 1992 hit single "Real Love":

    Real love
    I'm searching for a real love
  • The song is set in Ladera Heights, a neighborhood in Los Angeles county that has become a mecca for upper-class Black families. Another Channel Orange track, "Sweet Life," is set in the same location.
  • "Super Rich Kids" features a slow, methodical rap verse from Ocean's fellow Odd Future member Earl Sweatshirt. While Frank's neglected kid ends up experiencing suicidal thoughts because of the lack of real love he receives, the youngster in Earl's story erupts and vandalizes his Dad's Jaguar with a baseball bat.
  • Ocean soundtracked the "Monstrous Ball" episode of American aspirational teen drama Gossip Girl, which was screened on November 12, 2012. It features a number of tracks from Channel Orange, including this aptly-titled tune. The commission was the first time one artist had wholly scored a single episode of Gossip Girl.
  • This song plays over the end credits of Sofia Coppola's movie The Bling Ring, which is about, er, super rich kids.
  • The writers of "Real Love" are credited on this track along with Ocean, Earl Sweatshirt, and James Ho, who is a producer on the track along with Ocean and Malay.
  • There was a dispute over the sample of Mary J. Blige's "Real Love" on this track. The New York-based indie TufAmerica sued Ocean's record label Universal in February 2014, claiming they "failed and refused to secure a license" to use the track. The label brought the suit despite only having a 3.15% share in "Real Love."

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