André 3000 reappears 17 years later with a new album, set to release on Nov. 17, 2023. But it wasn’t easy for the musician to drop new heat in this new age of hip-hop.
The ex-OutKast member recently got candid in an interview with GQ — inside a laundromat he goes to — about his qualms with returning to rap.
And He promises his fans that he hasn’t been holding on to any reps, especially since he couldn’t find anything to rap about.
“I’ve worked with some of the newest, freshest, youngest, and old-school producers. I get beats all the time. I try to write all the time.” He said, but the (age) finds himself lyricless. “Even now, people think, Oh, man, he’s just sitting on raps, or he’s just holding these raps hostage. I ain’t got no raps like that. It actually feels…sometimes it feels inauthentic for me to rap because I don’t have anything to talk about in that way.”
The 48-year-old continued, “I’m 48 years old. And not to say that age is a thing that dictates what you rap about, but in a way, it does. And things that happen in my life, like, what are you talking about? ‘I got to go get a colonoscopy.’ What are you rapping about? ‘My eyesight is going bad.’ You can find cool ways to say it, but….”
That’s right. André 3000’s new album, “New Blue Sun,” will not have the “Ms. Jackson” hitmaker’s beast-like vocals and bars. It’s a unique style, but André couldn’t help himself — he filled the new album with contrabass, Mayan and bamboo flutes, NPR reported.
And, as an apology to fans who were expecting a rap album, he included a track titled “I Swear, I Really Wanted To Make A ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time.
Prior to the album release, the one half of OutKast adapted to a simple life, one that involved him playing his flute everywhere he went. And then fans would spot him in public with his instrument, something he initially felt uneasy about but would soon laugh about with his peers.
“I laugh at it because my homies in Atlanta, we’ll talk, and they’ll be like, ‘Man, you know n***as think you crazy to f**k around with this flute,” he said.
After “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” (2003), the rapper disappeared despite the occasional features on tracks like “Party” by Beyoncé and “Hurricane” by Kanye “Ye” West.
