André 3000 is set to release his debut solo album later this week.
Titled New Blue Sun, it doesn’t feature any rapping or singing, and instead sees the former Outkast member play various kinds of flute, including contrabass, Mayan and bamboo. The new record was born out of improvised jams that André undertook with percussionist Carlos Niño. Keyboardist Surya Botofasina and guitarist Nate Mercereau later joined the pair to finalise the seven cuts that makes up the record, while there are also contributions from several other artists.
New Blue Sun will be the US artist’s first full-length release since he put out Outkast’s final studio album, Idlewild, in 2006. The new record’s tracklist makes for somewhat interesting reading, with track titles ranging from ‘I Swear, I Really Wanted To Make A ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time’ to ‘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’.
The album is said to be inspired by the works of Laraaji, Brian Eno, Alice Coltrane, Steve Reich and Pharoah Sanders, as well as an ayahuasca trip in which André turned into a panther, as referenced in the title of the album’s third track. Speaking to NPR this week about the musical direction of New Blue Sun, he said: "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 realised, ‘Whoa, I really want people to hear it. I really want to share it’."
Epic will release New Blue Sun on November 17, 2023.
