André 3000 takes creative left turn
André 3000, who helped to change the face of hip-hop more than once, has released his first solo album, ‘New Blue Sun’.
In that time, he has retreated from the public eye, only sporadically appearing to continue to steal the show with verses on great music from Frank Ocean, Beyonce, and many others.
His own solo album was always eagerly awaited, but a rap-free album of flute-based jams is probably not what most rap fans had in mind.
Hip-hop evolves very quickly. By the time it made it to wax in the early ’80s many of the originators were seen as yesterday’s news and the new rappers of that era were usurped just as quickly themselves.
Forty years later, hip-hop continues to change at a remarkably quick pace. Outkast continue to have a huge influence on every hip-hop culture sub-genre, from southern rap and trap to jazzier grooves and even neo-soul, but they haven’t made commercially big records together since the incredible Speakerboxxx/The Love Below in 2003, (which was effectively two solo records).
New Blue Sun is André 3000’s first solo album, and the title of its opening track is telling. It’s titled ‘I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time’. André is doing his own thing here and it’s a creative left turn that’s hard to knock really.
It’s not as if Outkast were the most conventional band anyway and they became ever more popular the more avant-garde they went over time. Those albums had hits too and while New Blue Sun is as far from a radio album as you could imagine, it’s still a very interesting and ambitious record.
A lot of the publicity for the album revolved around a funny quote from André regarding his step away from rap on this record.
“I’m 48 years old. Not to say that age is a thing that dictates what you rap about, but in a way it does,” he told GQ recently. “What do you talk about — I gotta go get a colonoscopy? What do you rap about — my eyesight is going bad?”
In recent times there have been others of that vintage who have shown that age isn’t necessarily a hindrance, but the market for grown-up rap isn’t for everyone.
While Nas and co can still slay albums year in year out, others can move in different directions and why not?
I’ve enjoyed watching André 3000 do something that would be more typical of someone such as Prince, and I also couldn’t help but think that Stevie Wonder made a fairly similar move at his creative peak with The Secret Life of Plants.
In 2023 Nas is still rapping while Jay Z is barely rapping but always making boardroom moves.
Missy Elliot is active on multiple levels, while Dre, Pharrell, Kanye, and others have built different empires.
Diddy is trying his best to hang on to his empire, while other ’90s stars such as Notorious BIG, Tupac, ODB, and Eazy E are long gone but still remembered fondly by a music public that manages to evolve at breakneck speed while still remembering some of its icons. Big Boi of Outkast remains an important figure too, and André is here doing his thing.
Rap wasn’t meant to have this kind of longevity and while it’s hard to imagine a Biggie in his late 40s dropping a flute album, it’s also easier to immortalise those who shone bright and died young in rap.
Pac and Biggie made some commercial music at the tail end of their short careers, in an era which ushered in the commercialisation of hip-hop, so maybe their 40- or 50-year-old selves would not have been so cool as they were when they were in their early 20s.
André 3000 remains one of rap’s greatest ever and coolest ever, and New Blue Sun carries a kind of freewheeling spirit of being whatever it wants to be. You can’t be more hip-hop than that.
