Stream André 3000’s Flute Album New Blue Sun
Earlier this week, André 3000 revealed that he was releasing a new solo album, New Blue Sun. That album is out now. It’s nearly 90 minutes of flute-forward instrumentals, which André Benjamin co-produced alongside Carlos Niño. It features contributions from Nate Mercereau, Surya Botofasina, Deantoni Parks, Diego Gaeta, Matthewdavid, V.C.R, Diego Gaeta, Jesse Peterson, and Mia Doi Todd.
André has been doing press around the album. He announced it through a feature with NPR, and he also talked to GQ. As for why he’s not releasing a rap album? “I’ve worked with some of the newest, freshest, youngest, and old-school producers. I get beats all the time. I try to write all the time,” he told GQ. “Even now people think, Oh, man, he’s just sitting on raps, or he’s just holding these raps hostage. 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…”
The opening track of the album is called “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a Rap Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time.” Here’s New Blue Sun:
New Blue Sun is out now via Epic Records.