Released: 2012 • Features: Earl Sweatshirt
“Super Rich Kids” by Frank Ocean, featuring Earl Sweatshirt, serves as a poignant critique of the isolation and emptiness that can accompany wealth and privilege. It exposes the hollowness of indulgence, hinting at the emptiness and superficiality of relationships in this golden-gilded world. Narrating the everyday life of the wealthy, the lyrics capture the paradoxical reality where there are “too many bottles of this wine we can’t pronounce” yet they are “Super rich kids with nothing but loose ends.”
Verse one, delivered by Ocean, sets the mood. He presents a world of excess and deprivation at the same time. “Too many bowls of that green, no Lucky Charms” refers to the use of marijuana and lack of simple, everyday cereal which reflects indulgence in extravagance while neglecting basics. “Too many joyrides in daddy’s Jaguar” and “Too many white lies and white lines” symbolize indulgence in extravagant luxury and possibly drug abuse, which often are distractions from the loneliness caused by parental neglect.
The hook, “Super rich kids with nothing but loose ends/Super rich kids with nothing but fake friends” underscores the prevalent sense of emptiness and superficiality in these privileged lives. This poetic paradox of richness and nothingness emphasizes the lack of genuine relationships among these ‘super rich kids’.
“Start my day up on the roof/There’s nothing like this type of view” advances the theme of isolation. Despite the high vantage point that wealth affords, it often results in a detached perspective on life, further amplified by his desire for ‘expensive news’ and an indulgent lifestyle.
Earl Sweatshirt, in verse two, plays a rebellious, unfulfilled rich kid. “We are the Xanny-gnashing, caddy-smashing, bratty ass” is a direct reference to Xanax misuse, destruction of luxury (Cadillac), and general belligerence, a manifestation of underlying discontentment. “Adamant and he thrashin’/Purchasin’ crappy grams with half the hand of cash you handed” also reveals drug use as an attempt to find some mode or form of escape.
The final lines “Close my eyes and feel the crash” signal the inevitable downfall from this unsustainable lifestyle. Reality starts to set in with the metaphor of a market crash, suggesting that wealth and materialism are temporary and can disappear as quickly as they came.
Overall, “Super Rich Kids” is a somber narrative on the destructive effects of wealth and the pursuit of materialism. Despite its upbeat tempo, the song is a stark reminder that real love and genuine relationships cannot be purchased, leaving a profound impression on listeners to re-evaluate what truly matters in life.
