Forgoing the usual strategies to get people to vote (threatening to kill us, telling us we want to fuck the vote), Frank Ocean is trying a different approach. He’s giving away free stuff.
According to a flyer Pitchfork spotted on his Tumblr, people who live in either Houston, Miami, Atlanta, or Dallas can bring proof that they voted to a pop-up shop in their city and get free merch. The flyer explains that he picked these cities in order to get out the vote for three candidates in their respective states: Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams, who’s running for governor in Georgia; Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum, who’s running for governor in Florida; and Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke, who’s hoping to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas.
If fan account @TeamFrankDaily is to be believed—which, sure! why not—the free merch includes long-sleeve shirts and what appear to be stickers and bookmarks, emblazoned with the same “42%” branding found on the Tumblr flyer.
That percentage refers to the 42% of eligible voters, or 95.2 million people, who did not vote in the 2016 election. Ocean is hoping to turn a bunch of those non-voting eligible voters into voting-voting eligible voters this year, it would appear.