André 3000 Announces Debut Solo Album After 17 Years
André 3000’s debut solo album will be available sooner than expected. However, Outkast rapper has a surprise for fans as the album will not have any rapping on it. Instead of his usual bars, 3 Stacks will be heard playing the Contrabass flute, Mayan flutes, bamboo flutes, and using digital wind instruments, per Pitchfork.
New Blue Sun will be released this Friday (November 17) and will feature eight tracks. This is his first full-length since the 2006 Outkast LP Idlewild.
The project is described as “a stunning 87-minute mind-bender, minimalist and experimental, tribal and transcendent” album. The rapper also has no vocals on the project or any guest features. You can tell that the rapper has already anticipated what fans might perceive of the album as one of the song titles is: “I swear, I Really Wanted To Make A ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time.”
While there are no vocal features on the album, he worked with several musicians skilled in different instruments to form the project. The album was created after making music with percussionist Carlos Niño. They also added keyboardist Surya Botofasina and guitarist Nate Mercereau to the mix.
“It’s not like I don’t try, or it’s not like I have a lot of these songs just sitting—I have songs, but it’s not like rap things that I really feel happy about sharing. And really, that’s the most important part,” he said.
André 3000 Asks Tyler, The Creator, and Frank Ocean’s Opinion On New Album
He said that he also enlisted advice from Tyler, The Creator, and Frank Ocean to see how a younger audience would take in his album. He said that he was at Tyler’s home, and then Frank came by and he played them three songs from the album. He noted that they both positively reacted to the songs, which made him happy since he “respects them as musicians.”
Check out the tracklist for New Blue Sun below:
1. “I Swear, I Really Wanted To Make A “Rap” Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time”
2. “The Slang Word P—- Rolls Off The Tongue With Far Better Ease Than The Proper Word Vagina. Do You Agree?”
3. “That Night In Hawaii When I Turned Into A Panther And Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control … S— Was Wild”
4. “BuyPoloDisorder’s Daughter Wears A 3000™ Button Down Embroidered”
5. “Ninety Three ‘Til Infinity And Beyoncé”
6. “Ghandi, Dalai Lama, Your Lord & Savior J.C. / Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, And John Wayne Gacy”
7. “Ants To You, Gods To Who ?”
8. “Dreams Once Buried Beneath The Dungeon Floor Slowly Sprout Into Undying Gardens”