It was back in February 2013 that Frank Ocean first confirmed that he’d started work on his second studio album, the follow-up to 2012’s beloved channel ORANGE. That was three and a half years ago now, and it finally looks like that follow-up is ready: yesterday he started broadcasting a live stream (in reality a pre-recorded video art project) that showed Ocean cutting wood to build… well, to build something. He’s been back at it again today, this time wearing a Jesus & Mary Chain t-shirt (rad) while he does it. And according to reports, this is all building up to the release of his new album this Friday, expected to be called Boys Don’t Cry, alongside a print publication landing in Apple stores.

By this point we’ve heard all the jokes about the constant delays to the album, but what’s rarely acknowledged is just how much has happened in that time. It’s easy to lose track of time, but within this period the world has seen terror attacks, world-shaking political events, a mass refugee crisis, and the deaths of many high profile artists. Will a song started in 2013, when the world was a significantly different place, resonate as strongly in 2016?

Ahead of this Friday’s (probable) release, we’ve reminded ourselves of some of the world-changing events that have happened since Ocean started working on Boys Don’t Cry.

EVERYONE DIED

There have been a lot of high profile deaths since Ocean first revealed he was working on a new album. Notably, there were the musicians – Lou Reed, David Bowie, and Prince (who Ocean penned a tribute to) were amongst the most high profile, but icons of house music (Frankie Knuckles) and the avant-garde world (Alan Vega) have since passed, too. This is before even going into the entertainers (Robin Williams, Alan Rickman) whose deaths caused huge, public outpourings of grief across the western world.

TERRORISM BECAME DEPRESSINGLY COMMONPLACE

The world might not have been in a great place when Frank Ocean started working on his latest opus, but it was significantly happier than it is now. It’s hard to imagine, for example, that ISIS didn’t even exist at the time. The terrorist organisation declared itself in 2014 after seizing territory in Syria and Iraq, and since then the west has practically become accustomed to random slaughterings from Paris to Orlando, not to mention the misery taking place in the Middle East that’s rarely reported in the west.

BREXIT HAPPENED

Two months ago, the UK voted to leave the European Union. It was a messy campaign that then-Prime Minister David Cameron should never have even called in the first place, and it resulted in, in no specific order: a sharp rise in reports of racist attacks, the Prime Minister resigning, an MP being murdered, calls for a second independence referendum in Scotland (Frank’s album missed the first one, too), a handful of dipshitted Labour MPs destroying the opposition at the worst possible time, and a new Prime Minister coming into power with no mandate from her party members or the UK at large. Look, we’re not saying this wouldn’t have happened had Frank released a new album – we’re just saying there’s no way to tell either way.

DAVID CAMERON APPARENTLY SHAGGED A DEAD PIG IN ITS HEAD

To be fair, it wasn’t all sad news in UK politics in those years. In September 2015, it emerged that David Cameron had allegedly once shafted some pork with his pork – or, as it was described in a tell-all book by Lord Ashcroft, he put a “private part of his anatomy” into the sow’s skull. Somehow Cameron managed to weather this one quite well, but he’ll always be remembered as the piss weak Prime Minister who presided over huge increases in poverty, who took Britain out of the European Union, who likely triggered the breakup of the UK and EU… and who shagged a pig’s head.

YOUNG THUG BURST ONTO THE SCENE

Though he started releasing mixtapes in 2011, Atlanta rapper Young Thug didn’t start gaining wider recognition until 2013 with his mixtape 1017 Thug. This was around the time that Ocean first revealed that he’d been working on new music. Since then, of course, Thugger has gone on to release a lot of music – some 11 mixtapes, god knows how many singles, and a bunch of loosies, features, and leaks – in the time that Frank released one demo and did a few guest spots. Young Thug proved that having an anything-goes attitude is just as valuable as relentlessly pursuing perfectionism. The two are now in a Calvin Klein campaign together.

DONALD TRUMP BECAME THE FRIENDLY FACE OF FASCISM

When Frank Ocean released channel ORANGE, Donald Trump was best known as the presenter of a joke reality TV show who just a year earlier had led the racist ‘birther’ movement accusing Barack Obama of being born in Kenya. Today of course he’s the Republican presidential nominee, and – amongst a tide of anger against the neoliberal political establishment – he’s got a very, very good chance of winning in November. Funny how times change.

ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ELSE

Remember that time the Pope resigned? Or the plane that went missing? Or the mass deaths caused by Ebola, or the refugee crisis, or the whole Ukraine thing? Where would we be without those months of Cecil the Lion and Harambe memes? For the wellbeing of the human race, we need this album now.