André 3000 Releasing New Album Soon, Project Will Only Feature Flute Instrumentals With No Vocals Or Lyrics

André 3000

André 3000 Releasing New Album Soon, Project Will Only Feature Flute Instrumentals With No Vocals Or Lyrics

Hip-hop icon André 3000 will be releasing new music for the first time in over 17 years.

The musician recently spoke about the forthcoming project titled “New Blue Sun,” explaining why he decided to only feature instrumentals and how a few colleagues reacted to it.

“New Blue Sun” artwork

André 3000, born André Lauren Benjamin, 48, said that although he once thought he’d release a rap album if he ever put out a solo project, life landed him in a much different space. The Outkast member even named the first song on the project “I Swear, I Really Wanted To Make A ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time.”

Explaining how the idea for the instrumental album came about, he reportedly stated in a recent interview:

“I’ve been playing flute for years. It got to a point where it’s kind of Instagram worthy, where people were kind of sneaking and filming me play,”

He continued:

”I didn’t like that because they just kept getting little nicks of me, just kind of messing around…So I just felt like I’d really like to play but it was really for me. I would just walk for hours … I would just walk and play for hours. I did that for years and it got to a point where, okay, I want to share. And so going into New Blue Sun, it was kind of like trying to figure out, well, how do I share it? And I had all these ideas and all these influences of how I wanted it to sound.”

The “Hey Ya!” singer said he eventually moved to Venice where he met many notable instrumentalists such as Carlos Niño and Surya Botofasina, whom he’d end up collaborating with. Upon initially playing with the group, André said their intention was not necessarily to make an album, but instead to enjoy the music, one another’s talent, and company. However, after they recorded a few freestyles, he said they knew they were onto something special.

Reportedly, the group – comprised of several wind and percussion instrument players – recorded together for a full year. After the first few songs were finished, André called up his colleague Tyler, the Creator to gauge whether or not he was making something people would actually want to hear. Sharing the feedback he received from the musician, he stated:

“So we’re sitting there and Frank [Ocean] just happened to drop by. So it’s us three sitting there listening to these three songs and I just kind of wanted to get an opinion. And it was just good for me to hear with somebody else.”

Tyler, The Creator

He added:

“Tyler was staring at this thing that he has in his house. Like, he’s a fan of travel suitcases and so he has a wall of like travel suitcases. And he was like, ‘Man, I’ve been trying to figure out how to configure these like Louis suitcases.’ And he was listening to one of the songs and he was like, ‘It sounds like you’re chasing a butterfly through a garden and I figured it out. It helped me to figure out how to do this.’ And I think Frank [Ocean] pointed out one of his favorite tracks out of the three. And I was just happy to hear that, ’cause I respect them as musicians.”

Frank Ocean

Reportedly, “New Blue Sun” is set to debut this coming Friday, November 17th, and will be 87 minutes long. As the project features no vocals nor lyrics, André stated that he included lengthy titles such as “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” and “Ninety Three ‘Til Infinity And Beyoncé,” to give his audience as much context about the music as possible. Elsewhere in the interview, he also shared the inspiration for the name of the record, stating:

“Right now, if you look up in the sky, the sun that we’ve been living under for ages, even the Egyptian times, it’s the same sun. And it’s this kind of whitish, light, brightish kind of yellow…At some point that sun will die just like all stars.”

Andre 3000's flute playing is very relaxing!

I'm really excited for the album man. pic.twitter.com/O0cMXqumq4

— Rishabhhh (@wishabhhh) November 14, 2023

Adding :

“And New Blue Sun, for me, was like, I guess in a sci-fi way, the next world or the next beings will be under a bluer, cooler burning sun. It will burn cooler, but it will be larger…It’s kind of like this whole album and this whole direction is a new world for me. New Blue Sun is like a new direction.”

[VIA]

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