NEW YORK — 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 Solar” has “no bars,” he jokes. It is a divergence from rap as a result of “there was nothing I used to be liking sufficient to rap about, or I did not really feel it sounded contemporary. I am not about to serve you un-fresh (expletive.)”
As an alternative, he supplied up a six-track instrumental album of ambient alt-jazz — with particular consideration paid to the flute.
“The sound, that is how I obtained into it,” he says of the instrument. “The portability, too. You possibly can’t tote round a piano and play in Starbucks.”
He is additionally invested within the flute’s historical past — like studying about Mayan flutes produced from clay, a design he had re-created in cedarwood. “There’s every kind of fables and, you already know, indigenous tales that associate with enjoying the flute — enjoying just like the birds or enjoying your coronary heart just like the wind — it type of met (me) the place I used to be in life,” he says.
“Flutes — wind devices on the whole — are the closest factor you get to really listening to a human,” he continues. “You are really listening to the breath of an individual.”
“New Blue Solar” is a surprising 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 obtained their first nomination — for “Rosa Parks,” from their third album, “Aquemini” — and 20 years after the group received album of the yr for “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.”
“It issues as a result of all of us wish to be acknowledged or acknowledged,” André 3000 says of his new Grammy nominations. “It is a sort of proof of connection, in some sort of method … especially with the Grammys, as a result of it is voted on by a committee of musicians and folks within the business.”
He is a bit shocked by the eye, too, given the kind of album he created. “We now have no singles on the radio, not even singles which are scorching on the street,” he says. “While you’re sitting subsequent to Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, these are extremely, massively in style music artists, I am happy simply due to that … we received simply to be part of the entire dialog.”
He theorizes that it could be as a result of in style music listening habits are broadening. “Plenty of artists are simply making an attempt various things. Even, you already know, the album that Beyoncé is nominated for, it’s not her regular factor,” he says of her country-and-then-some file, “Cowboy Carter.” “We’re on this place the place issues are type of shifting and shifting.”
For André 3000, “New Blue Solar” has allowed him to “really feel like an entire new artist,” however it’s also an extension of who he is all the time been. “Being on the street with Outkast and choosing up a bass clarinet at a pawn store in New York and simply sitting on the again of the bus enjoying with it — these items have been round,” he says.
He is additionally all the time embraced “newness,” as he places it, experimenting creatively “even when it sounds non-masterful.”
“Even producing for Outkast, I used to be simply studying these devices. If I … put my palms down and play ‘Ms. Jackson,’ I am not figuring out what I am enjoying. However I prefer it,” he says.
As for a brand new Outkast album, “I by no means say by no means,” he says. “However I can say that the older I get, I really feel like that time has happened.”
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The 67th Grammy Awards will probably be held Feb. 2, 2025, at Crypto.com Area in Los Angeles. The present will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+. For extra protection, go to https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards.
