André 3000 bewildered many fans by announcing a solo album featuring no rapping. The enigmatic artist admitted it’s a struggle for him to conceive new raps for public consumption despite trying to write “all the time” in an interview with GQ.
“Even now people think, ‘Oh, man, he’s just sitting on raps,’ or he’s just holding these raps hostage,” André 3000 said. “I ain’t got no raps like that. It actually feels…sometimes it feels inauthentic for me to rap because I don’t have anything to talk about in that way.”
He continued, “I’m 48 years old. And not to say that age is a thing that dictates what you rap about, but in a way it does. And things that happen in my life, like, what are you talking about? ‘I got to go get a colonoscopy.’ What are you rapping about? ‘My eyesight is going bad.’ You can find cool ways to say it, but….”
Andre 3000’s solo debut New Blue Sun is scheduled to drop on Friday (November 17). The project is entirely instrumental with the Outkast rapper playing the flute and other wind instruments.
New Blue Sun will be André 3000’s first release since Outkast’s 2006 album Idlewild. The soundtrack turned out to be the legendary duo’s final album.