I Swear, I Didn't Want to Have a Take on Andre's Album but This Is the Only 'Content' I Could Come Up With

New Blue Sun, Old Guest Features and Leaked Andre Demos

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About two weeks ago Andre 3000 put out his first album in almost two decades. People got excited only to find out that instead of rapping on the album he’d be playing the flute.

It wasn’t a secret that he’s taken up the flute but nobody really expected him to commit to the bit. Ironically enough it’s not the first time that he picked up an instrument (anyone remember his guitar solo on that rick ross song?) but it is the first time that he’s opted to abandon vocals and go full instrumentalist.

Part of the roll out for the album was this interview he did with GQ where he talked about feeling like he doesn’t really have anything to rap about in his 40s and that really ruffled a few feathers for a few reasons including agesim and sacred cows. It’s a pretty good interview and I’d suggest checking it out because I’m terrible at paraphrasing but in general he’s just not inspired or excited by rapping right now.

He also did a really good interview with NPR (actually better than the GQ one cus Rodney Carmichael is masterful) that was equally as revealing.

He’s one of my favorite rappers and I think the thing that makes him so good is that he not only raps at savant levels but does so sparingly, knowing exactly when to hit the gas and when to slow it down.

Stankonia as an album overall is a really good example of this and it also shows how well he balanced out the group. By the time he got around to The Love Below and Idlewild we were lucky to be getting any raps at all. At that point he had mostly moved on to singing and using his voice in other ways.

Most of his recent features feel very heavy. The main one that comes to mind is the thing he did for Kanye’s DONDA album and that verse makes me sad. It’s about grief and loss and depression and all these emotions that he has about losing his mom. If you go further back to a few years ago, he’s featured on TI’s song ‘Sorry’ and he talks about how he used to be a better rapper when he was hungry and then goes on to just preemptively rap about all the stuff he talks about in those two recent interviews that I just linked. (It’s almost like he was trying to tell us something!)

All of that to say that he’s been rapping about not really wanting to rap for a long time now and if rapping has become more traumatizing than cathartic for him and fucking around on the flute makes him smile we should give him that grace.

The real impetus for this topic however was the fact that I found these three demos floating around on youtube and wanted to share them with you. They’re rough and not fully fleshed out but are still pretty cool song ideas and he even raps on one! They also just kinda reinforce everything that he said in those interviews.

Is this a glimpse of things to come? Is it a look at what could have been? Or is it just something we had no business hearing that has been made public? Even though I’m sharing it with you I’d like to think it was the latter.

I actually enjoyed the flute album and have been playing it at night as I drift off to sleep. Playing that joint at mid to low volume with an edible has given me some very good rest. I know that’s an odd way to use an album but strange times call for a reimagining of everything.

And if you really want to hear him rap I found this pretty cool playlist of songs that he’s been featured on. It’s pretty comprehensive and does a good job of scratching that itch.

In closing Andre can do whatever the hell he wants because he’s not only a generational talent but also a human being with complex emotions. He also made Bombs Over Baghdad which is one of the greatest songs ever recorded in any genre and that’s worth more than a few guitar solos and ambient flute albums.

*He also made news for releasing the ‘Longest Song To Ever Chart on Billboard’s Hot 100’ which is kinda cool if you’re into vanity metrics, listener drop off rates and the overall farce that billboard’s charts are.