And that Frank Ocean was a frequent guest at the house.
In a new interview in GQ, Chance the Rapper claims that the 2014 Instagram post he shared of himself with James Blake captioned “All settled in the new crib. And there’s a fire pit on my balcony. @jamesblake” was for an actual home he and the London producer leased together – and that Blake backed out of it, leaving Chance to foot the rent himself.
The ‘Life Round Here’ collaborators’ house, referred to as Koi Kastle, was located in North Hollywood and was what Chance called a “big-ass rapper mansion”. Despite how nice this sounds as a place for creativity, Blake denies that this was ever a reality.
In a statement to GQ, he said: “We’d very loosely and playfully daydreamed about getting somewhere to live/work for a little while, but never discussed specifics… I turned up and he told me my name was on the lease, which was creepy because I’d never signed anything.”
He adds: “I’d never and still have never heard of Koi Kastle, had never seen a picture of the home and had never been to or known the existence of the area it was in.”
This is the second recent row Blake has gotten into with another artist. A few weeks ago, Hudson Mohawke said on Twitter that he had demoed some tracks with Blake for a project that hasn’t and probably would never see the light of day. Blake later said he was “respectfully baffled” by HudMo’s claim, that the two had never worked together. It, ultimately, got a little ugly.
Whether Koi Kastle was just Chance’s home or not, it did attract some talented visitors. Chance also said in the GQ profile that Frank Ocean would often come over the house: “I was on a date one time at the crib, and we’re sitting in the front room, maybe rolling up some weed or something… And then Frank just comes up and starts playing the piano and lightly singing in the background of our date. Obviously, that scored me a lot of points with this female.”
