André 3000: New Blue Sun
How André 3000's bold new album reminds us that personal growth and not bowing to pressure to stay exactly the same is fine...
Music will always have the power to move me. But I wasn’t expecting André 3000 and his flute to get me so deep in my feelings and write something like this. So, thank you, Mr Benjamin.
Last Friday, André 3000—arguably one of the greatest rap artists of all time and forever my King of the Silk Press—casually gifted the world with his debut solo album - New Blue Sun.
Like millions of fans worldwide, I had longed to hear more from Mr Benjamin. Over the years, we’d been treated to a few sprinkles of his magic - moments like him guesting on tracks by artists ranging from Anderson .Paak to Frank Ocean to Beyoncé. Only a couple of weeks ago, I watched André 3000 in the film White Noise on Netflix. The image of him on my screen dressed as cool as fuck (of course), holding a box of generic cookies and dancing to LCD Soundsystem in the middle of a hyperrealistic supermarket reminded me how much I missed the surreal visual presence of that man, too.
I was over the moon when I saw his name trending on social media on November 14th and tapped through to news of upcoming brand new music (the sigh of relief I let out upon discovering he’d not been cancelled or something awful had happened to him). Seventeen years is a long time, but good things come to those who wait, right?
There was a whirl of feverish talk online that André 3000’s new offering was set to be extremely different from what fans of OutKast knew him for. Black Twitter - a corner of the internet that is a glorious hub of Black Culture that will never be defeated and I often return to (even though 99% of that site is now a hellscape - thanks, Elmo) had memes for days about what André 3000 was allegedly going to drop: an instrumental album of flute music.
I’m not going to lie; the memes being shared that were anticipating how this album was going to sound had me howling! But they were not just straight-up piss takes: they were coming from a place of love. People were expressing their excitement about how this new side of André 3000 would make them feel when they finally got the opportunity to press play. Of all the humour that Black Twitter was putting out there, this tweet by @ChrissyHussle (a clip from ‘Drumline’, which IMO is one of the most underrated Black Teen Movies ever) had to be my favourite:
I was open to the idea of hearing something new from André 3000. I stopped myself from scrolling through the bare jokes on Twitter so that I could listen—without too much prejudice—to the new album.
Friday, November 16th: the day had come for me and the rest of the world to be bathed in the unpredictable sounds of New Blue Sun. Although the release came almost without warning, this was André 3000: there had to be some kind of, well… something to celebrate the rising of his revamped musical light?!
Of course, the man didn’t disappoint. The moment André 3000 dropped a link in his Instagram Stories to an online listening party he was hosting to launch the album, I was there.
Clicking the link, I wasn’t transported to a glitzy music industry gathering littered with appearances from André 3000’s superstar friends. It was in a blue room with just André 3000, his flute of choice and a candle. He thanked the viewers for coming, wished everyone good health and briefly introduced New Blue Sun.
Much like the album, the party was non-verbal after that - but it did have many improvised movements (the incredible Terence Nance directed the film, so to call them ‘improvised’ could be wrong) from André 3000.
Then, I allowed myself to bask in the visuals and the album. I wasn’t sitting on my sofa, trying to speed rap to tracks like B.O.B (one of my favourites by OutKast and a lyrical flow by André 3000 that I will never ever nail). Nor was I being served deliciously saucy double entendres like those he fed us in Spread.
New Blue Sun is a beautifully ambient, free-flowing and soothing journey. With only eight tracks and a run time of almost ninety minutes, you can get lost in every single composition. Thanks to the influence of my Uncle Hollis, who has schooled me on jazz since I was little (and continues to do so), I have a few jazz albums on vinyl (that’s thanks to Ian and his obsession with that format) at home. In my opinion, New Blue Sun can slide right into the section of our record collection that houses the likes of Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, and Miles Davis.
About 43 minutes into the listening party, he left the room and returned with a yellow traffic cone, a rubber duck wearing what looks like The Nemes pharaoh headdress, and a pair of sneakers… which he used on his hands to walk on all fours.
The gist of the party might sound absurd on paper (you can watch a replay of it here) - but it felt like the launch party was precisely how André 3000 intended it to be, which is what made it pretty damn cool, IMO.
The calm, toned-down nature of New Blue Sun’s launch—as opposed to the showbiz glitz you’d expect for an album release for a musician of André 3000’s calibre—is what makes the experience so spectacular.
It’s also exciting because this is a Black creative known almost exclusively for one genre of music for nearly the entirety of his career, showing the world that he was more than a rapper. It feels like the biggest flex of his artistic freedom is currently being exercised, and it is so inspiring and a privilege to witness.
It feels like André 3000 is telling everyone that it is OK to be more than one thing; it’s alright to show the world another side of yourself, and if folks don’t like it, they can exercise their right to respectfully GTFO of your blue room.
Another intriguing thread of the soft launch of New Blue Sun is the scarcity of interviews that André 3000 has given for it. There are two (that I know of) in-depth interviews in existence: this one with NPR and the GQ Magazine Video Cover Story.
There are some nuggets of gold in the excellent GQ feature. One that shone for me was when the interviewer (respectfully) pointed out that André 3000 is a ‘Top Five’ artist for him and a majority of rap fans around the world. The interviewer, Zack Baron, went on to give an interesting analogy about how New Blue Sun was potentially denying fans of André 3000’s fire bars they’d been waiting seventeen years for:
Zach Baron: “You're a top five to many people. To me, you're basically being like, ‘I have a very beautiful sports car in the garage, but I choose never to drive it’ you know… which is your talent”
And André 3000’s answer to this is magnificent:
André 3000: “Talent is one thing, but honestly - I think timing and momentum is more important than talent, and the energy of it. It's a lot of people with talent, and we're seeing that now. There's so many dope people on the internet that are just raw, but it's your timing.
It's what you're talking about. It's if you're catching the zeitgeist of what's happening in the world, and my goal is I want to connect. I'm not talking about nothing that I can't connect with.”
Excerpt: ‘André 3000 Talks About His New Album and Life After OutKast’ - GQ
Although it’s clear throughout the interview that Zach is a fan and admires André 3000, I couldn’t help but feel an air of entitlement about what André 3000 supposedly owed the world and the pigeonholing of what type of music—and the kind of creativity—he was expected to deliver.
There was something wild about how playing the flute couldn’t be held in the same regard as his killer lyrical flows (the ‘beautiful sports car in the garage’). My interpretation of that comment was that people are afraid of change. When the familiarity of something or someone you know and love makes way for something new, all hell breaks loose.
But that same thing or person you loved isn’t dead. They’re still with you - just what you know of them has evolved. That’s not a bad thing.
…this is a Black creative known almost exclusively for one genre of music for nearly the entirety of his career, showing the world that he was more than a rapper. It feels like the biggest flex of his artistic freedom is currently being exercised, and it is so inspiring and a privilege to witness.
After waiting seventeen years to hear new music from André 3000, the direction of New Blue Sun took everyone by surprise. But Maybe the flautist in him shouldn’t have shocked us too much.
There have been a few occasions where he and his woodwind instruments have been clocked in the wild—occasions like that time in 2019 when he was spotted playing the flute in an airport. And then, in 2022, André 3000 was featured on the Everything Everywhere All At Once soundtrack album… playing the flute.
Just as that NPR interview said, perhaps André 3000 was “preparing us for what was coming all along”.
André 3000 has always had more than one beautiful sports car in his garage - he’s a polymath - and appearances of him driving any of those vehicles of talent in public had become a rarity in the last seventeen years. Let us appreciate the privilege of witnessing him take a different one out for a spin… and enjoy the ride.
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Absolutely love this and I love his new album....thank you Jools 💖👑