Andre 3000 Is Releasing A New Album Friday and Its Not What You Think

This Friday, November 17, André 3000 will drop his first solo album. New Blue Sun is not what you might expect: Instead of beats, bars, and singing, the 87-minute record showcases André the flautist. He plays contrabass flute, Mayan flutes, bamboo flutes, and digital wind instruments, NPR reports. One track is called “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time.” Another is named “Ninety Three ’Til Infinity and Beyoncé.” The full tracklist, below, is worth a look.

André 3000 has been mostly silent since Outkast’s last album in 2006, which won a Grammy. He has released some songs of his own and collaborated with artists like Beyonce, Drake and Frank Ocean. But he has not made any longform releases of his own, making New Blue Sun his first full-length since the 2006 Outkast LP Idlewild. He has been seen as an eccentric, wandering figure in Atlanta, in airports, and around the world, with his flute—images that fans love to share online. “I laugh at it because my homies in Atlanta, we’ll talk and they’ll be like, ‘Man, you know n***** think you crazy to f*** around with this flute,” he told NPR.

The album came from jams André 3000 did with the renowned percussionist Carlos Niño. They brought in keyboardist Surya Botofasina and guitarist Nate Mercereau, and recorded the improvisations that make up the LP. André 3000 said to NPR, “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. I have to feel happy about sharing it. That’s why New Blue Sun was something that I realized, whoa, I really want people to hear it. I really want to share it.”

He asked artist friends to listen to early versions. Frank Ocean liked it. Tyler, the Creator said one song helped him figure out a complex Louis Vuitton travel suitcase, saying, “It sounds like you’re chasing a butterfly through a garden and I figured it out.” André 3000 said he still works on rap tracks, but “it’s kind of like, I don’t know how to rock on that, really, in a way that I feel great about it. So if I can’t find a way to rock on it, I kind of leave it there.” The new album is inspired by Laraaji, Brian Eno, Alice Coltrane, Steve Reich, Pharoah Sanders, and an ayahuasca trip where André 3000 became a panther (see the third track).

In the NPR interview, André 3000 also talked about Virgil Abloh’s family’s request that he play flute at the late designer’s funeral. “I denied it, but only because I felt like I would be a distraction,” André 3000 said. “I don’t know, I just felt like it would have taken away from the moment and I only knew Virgil through texts and a few conversations. So I couldn’t pretend like I knew him that well. I was honored that the family asked me to play at the funeral, but I couldn’t.”

Other instrumentalists on New Blue Sun are Deantoni Parks, Diego Gaeta, Matthewdavid, V.C.R, Diego Gaeta, Jesse Peterson, and Mia Doi Todd. Learn more about the album in André 3000’s interview with NPR’s Rodney Carmichael for All Songs Considered.

New Blue Sun (Track List):

01 I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a “Rap” Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time
02 The Slang Word P(*)ssy Rolls Off the Tongue With Far Better Ease Than the Proper Word Vagina . Do You Agree?
03 That Night in Hawaii When I Turned Into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control ... Sh¥t Was Wild
04 BuyPoloDisorder’s Daughter Wears a 3000® Button Down Embroidered
05 Ninety Three ’Til Infinity And Beyoncé
06 Ghandi, Dalai Lama, Your Lord & Savior J.C. / Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy
07 Ants to You, Gods to Who ?
08 Dreams Once Buried Beneath the Dungeon Floor Slowly Sprout Into Undying Gardens