André 3000

At around the 7:40 mark of his interview with GQ recently, Andre 3000 says "I've actually played some wind things that I've put out in the world that I call myself another name, under different artists." and that wind instrument guest spots are "from known artists."

On Kesha's recent album Gag Order, which was produced by Rick Rubin, the 11th track (Only Love Reprise) is a 1:15 song of mainly flute and some spoken excerpts. It sounds pretty much like everything on New Blue Sun. So I go look up the credits and the flute is played by VantaBlaqJungleKat which is a name that doesn't show up anywhere else on the internet.

Seems 100% definitive to me but let me know what you think?

There are many to chose from but i will note some of my favorites:

• 4th verse on Aquemini

• 1st verse on Return of the G

• 1st verse on Bombs over Baghdad

• 1st verse on Intl Players Anthem

Since Outkast released their last album in 2006, the Grammy-winning group’s Andre “3000” Benjamin has released a small smattering of songs and memorably guested on tracks by artists ranging from Beyonce to Drake to Frank Ocean, but has kept fans waiting for his debut solo album.

It’s finally dropping Friday, the artist suddenly announced out of a clear blue sky early on Tuesday morning.

Neither a joke, nor a gimmick, New Blue Sun wasn't actually terrible. I expected myself to be rolling my eyes, while listening to inaccessible instrumentals. The tracks were ephemeral, emotional and strangely calming. Don't get me wrong, nothing I love about Andre 3000 is noticably present in this album, other than his desire to be unique and daring. But, really, who else but Andre 3000 could pull something like this off. Yes I would have preferred bars. But, no I do not hate it

I like it as a representation of an artist staying true to themselves and following the muse to new and strange places. The album comes across as honest and I love how he put so many thoughts into the titles. It's hard to make a specific emotional connection without lyrics and creative titles makes the whole thing much more approachable. It's a whole package rather than a bunch of songs. Overall the delivery, vibe and philosophy behind Andres latest is top shelf. Hes truly one of a kind.

The only issues I have is that music part of the album is straight up boring; and the mix is flat to the point of being a distraction.

I know old jazz recordings are pretty lo-fi and often have the highs rolled off in varying degrees to "mellow" the sound. It feels like Andres record is reaching for some version of that sound and there are def passages that are close. But the whole thing has a very low passed quality to my ear, in not a good way.

The album sounds so bad, it's kind of hard for me to take the praise i've heard seriously. I really wanted to like it and almost felt like I was enjoying it for a moment. But once I stepped back and said, "what if I listened to this as a jazz record and NOT an Andre 3000 record??" I realized I was way more into the novelty and discourse around it. When I did my best to consider the art without the context of who released it and when, I hear a very different record.

Which made me think... Is it fair for me to take the artist out of the art? Does considering the music on it's own merit dis-service the album as a whole "art-unit", so to speak?

Just my thoughts after the first listen, I'm open to hearing what you like about the music and trying to listen in a different perspective. I've listened to jazz for most of my life and have enjoyed lots of Andres music, so I genuinely expected to be into New Blue Sun. It was a little shocking when I realized I had more criticism than praise.

In the end, I'm glad hes got to the point where he can put out anything he wants and I don't think it matters why someone likes it.

But I do think it's interesting.

What do you think?

Edit- I'm using the word jazz as a stand-in for improvisational music. I didn't expect a Blue Note record and understand that it's not a jazz album in the traditional sense.

Edit edit- I just gave it a 2nd run through, only in reverse track order and I think the 1st track is by far my least favorite and colored the rest of my 1st listen. It was much nicer the 2nd time thru and while I wouldn't call the mix remarkable, it's not remarkably bad either. I really like the sub bass throughout the record and Ants to You, Gods to Who is quite good. Andre still doesn't strike me as a particularly musical soloist, but thats just my taste and hes certainly not terrible. Lots of good comments here about how hes playing in a certain style that I'm not familiar with. Idk if it's gonna be a staple in my library, but thats OK cause I'm just some jagoff on the internet, lol

Enjoyed the thoughtful discussion, thanks everyone!

Why is he considered one of the goats? Is it the lyrics? flows? Legacy? I know a few songs by him and I personally think they’re all OK or good, nothing really stands out to me as one of the best.

Killer Mike just announced on Sway. Let’s fucking go!!

As most of you folks are likely aware, Andre 3000 just released his first album as a solo artist – and it is ~90 minutes of ambient jazz flute. I gave it a listen this past weekend, it’s honestly very good for what it is. Nobody asked for it, certainly not hip-hop fans that have been drooling over the prospect of an Andre 3000 solo album for 2 decades straight. But the album is well-crafted and it seems to reflect Dre’s genuine artistic expression.

It’s always very interesting when an artist strays drastically from the type of music that made them popular. Sometimes it feels natural, if not also surprising. Sometimes it feels disingenuous, either as some kind of cash-grab on an existing trend or a cynical trolling of a too-demanding fanbase.

I want to bring up two other recent projects and contrast them with Andre 3000’s New Blue Sun:

First is Mac DeMarco’s One Wayne G, which is a 199 track “album” of lo-fi beats and half-formed song sketches. This “album” (I put that word in quotes because I’m not sure if it qualifies as such) came after January 2023’s Five Easy Hotdogs - a much shorter set of similar instrumental tracks.

I find it fascinating that Mac DeMarco’s early indie-rock records were easily the most imitated in the genre for about a decade, but now he doesn’t seem interested in writing real songs. Even the past couple of proper albums – 2017’s This Old Dog and 2019’s Here Comes the Cowboy - have a very casual, off-the-cuff feel to them. Despite practically inventing the slacker-indie sound that dominated the 2010’s, I’m not sure how many people expected Mac DeMarco to actually start slacking.

And what’s even more interesting is that while this music is disappointing in relation to his earlier songwriting, it also kinda works. One Wayne G is perfect background music for a lot of contexts, there is a savviness to these tracks that you won’t find by searching “lo-fi study beats” in your favored streaming app. And the rare moments of Mac singing on these tracks are just enough to put his creative stamp on them, to remind you that you are still experiencing the music from the roguishly charismatic personality he is known for.

It's hard to assess how genuine this move is, or what it’s supposed to reflect in Mac DeMarco’s current situation as an artist. Maybe more research is needed, I haven’t read any interviews or anything. Is he burned out from writing focused material? Is this a calculated business move to use crafted background music to generate streams? Or is this a more genuine artistic shift – maybe he is angling towards doing soundtrack work in the future?

Next is Lil Yachty’s Let’s Start Here - a psych-rock fusion project from a declining “mumble rap” artist. What makes this one interesting is that Lil Yachty has pretty much explicitly stated that he made this record in order to be taken more seriously as an artist – obviously, a controversial statement for a rap artist to make because of the negative implications for the genre, or at least the sub-genre of Lil Yachty’s vein of auto-tune-heavy Soundcloud rap. It also doesn’t help that Lil Yachty has been outshined in rap for quite a while, with most of his preceding material feeling stale compared to his 2016 debut Lil Boat. It’s honestly not a good look to trash-talk the genre you failed at by making it explicit that you think another genre of music deserves to be taken more seriously.

That said, the actual music on this album is pretty good, and it is not without precedent – we have enjoyed similar forward-thinking genre-blending psych-rock from other black artists such as Yves Tumor and Steve Lacy, and Lil Yachty pulls off a similarly enjoyable sound here. But it is a bit more difficult to take Lil Yachty as seriously as those artists given the context of his lane-switch. I think we require more of a vacuum to enjoy this one fully, because the context of Lil Yachty’s statements and the clarity of the influences on this record can start to make you feel cynical about it.

What do you guys think of these three projects? Are there other drastic genre-switch albums that are interesting to discuss? Let’s talk.