NEW YORK (AP) — Nobody was anticipating it. Late final yr, André 3000 launched his debut solo album, “New Blue Sun,” 18 years after his legendary rap group Outkast’s final studio album, “Idlewild.”
However “New Blue Sun” has “no bars,” he jokes. It is a divergence from rap as a result of “there was nothing I was liking enough to rap about, or I didn’t feel it sounded fresh. I’m not about to serve you un-fresh (expletive.)”
As a substitute, he provided up a six-track instrumental album of ambient alt-jazz — with particular consideration paid to the flute.
“The sound, that’s how I got into it,” he says of the instrument. “The portability, too. You may’t tote round a piano and play in Starbucks.”
He is additionally invested within the flute’s historical past — like studying about Mayan flutes made out of clay, a design he had re-created in cedarwood. “There’s every kind of fables and, , indigenous tales that associate with taking part in the flute — taking part in just like the birds or taking part in your coronary heart just like the wind — it sort of met (me) the place I used to be in life,” he says.
“Flutes — wind instruments in general — are the closest thing you get to actually hearing a human,” he continues. “You’re actually hearing the breath of a person.”
“New Blue Sun” is a shocking assortment, one which has earned André 3000 three new Grammy Award nominations: album of the yr, various jazz, and instrumental composition. These arrive precisely 25 years after the 1999 Grammys, the place Outkast acquired their first nomination — for “Rosa Parks,” from their third album, “Aquemini” — and 20 years after the group won album of the year for “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.”
“It matters because we all want to be acknowledged or recognized,” André 3000 says of his new Grammy nominations. “It’s a type of proof of connection, in some type of way … especially with the Grammys, because it’s voted on by a committee of musicians and people in the industry.”
He is a bit stunned by the eye, too, given the kind of album he created. “We have no singles on the radio, not even singles that are hot in the street,” he says. “Once you’re sitting subsequent to Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, these are extremely, vastly standard music artists, I am happy simply due to that … we gained simply to be part of the entire dialog.”
He theorizes that it could be as a result of standard music listening habits are broadening. “A lot of artists are just trying different things. Even, you know, the album that Beyoncé is nominated for, it’s not her normal thing,” he says of her country-and-then-some file, “Cowboy Carter.” “We’re on this place the place issues are sort of shifting and transferring.”
For André 3000, “New Blue Sun” has allowed him to “feel like a whole new artist,” however it’s also an extension of who he is all the time been. “Being on the road with Outkast and picking up a bass clarinet at a pawn shop in New York and just sitting on the back of the bus playing with it — these things have been around,” he says.
He is additionally all the time embraced “newness,” as he places it, experimenting creatively “even if it sounds non-masterful.”
“Even producing for Outkast, I was just learning these instruments. If I … put my hands down and play ‘Ms. Jackson,’ I’m not knowing what I’m playing. But I like it,” he says.
As for a brand new Outkast album, “I never say never,” he says. “But I can say that the older I get, I feel like that time has happened.”
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The 67th Grammy Awards can be held Feb. 2, 2025, at Crypto.com Enviornment in Los Angeles. The present will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+. For extra protection, go to https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards.
