Source: Renell Medrano/GQ / Renell Medrano/GQ
André 3000 knows everyone was waiting on him to make his long-awaited solo rap album but tells GQ it felt “inauthentic”.
Sometimes things don’t go as planned and that seems to be the premise for André 3000 and his new project New Blue Sun. Fans have been begging for new verses from the Southern legend for years. When Drake leaked his verse on Kanye West’s “Life of The Party” it heightened the calls for a proper solo album. Yet, here we are in 2023 and all André has for anyone is an instrumental album.
However, he promises he tried to do that thing people love him for but followed his heart.
According to GQ, André 3000 is being as raw as possible about making raps and how inauthentic it feels to him.
“Sometimes it feels inauthentic for me to rap”- said the ATLien. “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.” But rap is not what comes, he says. “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. 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….”
Rap is a young man’s sport, we all know this but there is space for older legends in the game. Everyone has a vision for getting on but rarely one for the aftermath following extreme success and artistic creation. Also in the GQ Men of the Year video cover André breaks down the risks of giving up the normalcy he regained after Outkast by releasing new music.
“I remember a couple weeks ago talking to my manager and publicist,” he said. “I was like, I really have to ask myself, do I wanna be just out there again? To do the run, to do the PR? I really had to ask myself. And I honestly don’t. I really enjoy my life. I like being able to do what I want as a civilian. But at the same time, I wanna promote the music. So I’m honestly doing it to promote the music. This ain’t no flex.”
For context, his GQ video cover was recorded while the superstar was at the laundromat doing his laundry. Something he does on the regular without issues or fanfare. Surprisingly 3stacks compares becoming famous to experiencing trauma which may be the best examples we’ve heard.
“I think that may have been a traumatic kind of thing,” he told Baron. “Because it’s really unnatural to have that much attention as a human or to have that much expectation as a human. I had to adjust to people filming you all the time or coming up to you.”
Let’s pray whatever itch placed this instrumental wind-filled album on his heart is scratched come midnight. Regardless of what people wanted from him, André 3000 is delivering a breath of fresh air. Honestly, this surprise instrumental album seems more on-brand than any rap album.
You can watch GQ’s full 33-minute conversation with André Benjamin below.
