It’s been 17 long years since Outkast broke up. Since then, André 3000 has intermittently made guest appearances on other artists’ tracks but has avoided longform releases of his own. Now, André 3000 has made the announcement that he’ll be releasing his debut solo album ‘New Blue Sun,’ this coming Friday.
Fans have been waiting so long for a solo André 3000 project but we can guarantee nobody expected it to be “an entirely instrumental album centered around woodwinds.” One track is even titled “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time.”
In the announcement, Andre describes the work as “therapeutic,” and says of releasing an album in his more-familiar rap musical genre,
“There’s this misconception that I just won’t do it. I think people feel like I’m sitting around on rap albums, or sitting around and I’m just not putting them out in that way. And no it’s not like that. In my mind, I really would like to make a rap album. So maybe that happens one day, but I got to find a way to say what I want to say in an interesting way that’s appealing to me at this age.”
The album, coming on Sony Music’s Epic Records, is co-produced by André 3000 and multi-instrumentalist Carlos Niño, and featuring the playing of Nate Mercereau, Surya Botofasina, Deantoni Parks, Diego Gaeta, Matthewdavid, V.C.R, Diego Gaeta, Jesse Peterson, and Mia Doi Todd. Check out his recent interview with NPR here.
