An album of the year nomination at the Grammys? André 3000 has been here before.
Two decades ago, he and his Outkast partner Big Boi won the prize for “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below,” their multifaceted hip-hop opus that became a crossover pop breakout. This year, though, André has been recognized for something quite different: “New Blue Sun,” the improvisational flute-led album he released last November, which on Friday was honored with nods in three categories: best alternative jazz album, best instrumental composition and, perhaps most shocking, album of the year, competing against Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift and pop’s heaviest hitters.
The album is a thoughtful musical excursion and also a statement of creative purpose — a demonstration that even one of the most storied figures in pop music can rewrite their own script in real time. André 3000 has spent the bulk of this year touring with the band who recorded the album, putting jazz-influenced experimental music on grand stages around the world. But he’s still working far from the pop and hip-hop forms that formed the foundation for his success. Relative anonymity is a trade-off he was willing to make for creative freedom, but the reception to the album has also shown that fans — and now Grammy voters — are interested in welcoming him back to the spotlight.
After gathering his thoughts early Friday afternoon, André 3000 spoke about how the seed for his current adventure was planted back in the Outkast era, using the audience as an instrument, and what it’s like to make it all up as you go. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Big day. Where were you when you heard?
I’m in Virginia today, we’re playing tonight. I was just waking up and I heard that the nominations came in. We were trying to be nominated in some type of way for alternative jazz or ambient, possibly. But I was totally surprised by this. So yeah, it was super, super, super duper cool.
We’re 20 years past “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” winning album of the year, and it’s the last rap album to take that top prize. Do you think that’s still on voters’ minds? That they’re seeing your creative evolution?
No. I don’t think people will make the connection. I think it’s because there’s no lyrics on the album. It’s an odd-man-out kind of thing.
I wonder what you make of the fact that no rap album has won in these two decades?
It just depends on what’s important to the voters, and rap may not be important for them. I must say that even though “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” was the last rap album, it was half a rap album. So even in that, it’s saying, well, we enjoyed something more than rap.
In the first wave of interviews that you were doing about this album, you talked a lot about the modesty that comes with trying something new — being an amateur again and figuring things out. As you’ve been touring this record, has that changed?
It’s even more so, because now it’s a different element in the room. We recorded the album with ourselves in a space, so now we have to add the element of hundreds or thousands of people watching. And so we hit the stage every night not knowing what even the first note I will play, not knowing where we’ll go, what instruments you’ll hear first. So it’s a pure trust exercise every night in front of people that have paid to come and spend time with us. It’s way more intense than what’s on the album.
Has performing this music changed your feeling about live performance? You’ve talked about wondering whether you even wanted to be onstage during Outkast reunion shows. How do you feel now in this improvisational setting?
This art isn’t a chorus that the audience knows. It’s not a verse that the audience knows. It’s not a beat that you can hide behind. It’s really an open exercise every day.
Musicians that have made great music over time come to our shows and we meet them backstage and what they comment mostly on is like, “Man, this is freedom. I wish I could be doing this. I wanted to get up there with y’all.” It’s the freedom more than anything.
Does this feel like a victory for freedom?
Yeah. And that’s what I want people to get out of it most. For me, it’s important that the kids see what we’re doing. Because it says what I’ve been saying all along — do what you feel.
And I had great training ground. All of the members of the Dungeon Family, they were older than me and Big Boi, so I saw what it’s like to be free. I saw what it’s like to dream. And being in Atlanta, that helped to kind of carve your own thing out. Like, we knew we couldn’t be New York. We knew we couldn’t be West Coast, so we had to find our own thing. That forces you to do something new.
From the very earliest days, you had to figure out how to be free, and then you had to figure out how to be free from the thing you that you taught yourself. So it’s a constant cycle.
Nowadays, the artist may put out two, three, four albums a year. But back then there were almost two years between every Outkast album. So as people, we grew. As a producer, I grew. I’m injecting stuff into Outkast music that I’m learning experimenting with instruments. I swear to God, it’s the same formula. Like when I played the chords to “Ms. Jackson,” I just put my hands out on the keyboard and I liked them and it became “Ms. Jackson.” That’s kind of like the hip-hop of it, where it’s an instant gratification type of thing. I mean, in early, early, early hip-hop, you were doing that song that night, and you may have freestyled the lyric, which is kind of like an improv.
Do you view the audience as a kind of instrument or participant in these new performances?
For sure. Because we are feeding off a certain energy. We’re feeding off their hoots and hollers, off the actual environment, how the sound is bouncing off the walls, the moving around in chairs. Some people start singing, some people start making tribal noises. It is wild. So you never know what will happen.
You play several different flutes and other instruments during the show. Is there one particular flute that telegraphs joy or celebration — something you might pull out tonight?
No, I wouldn’t say that there’s a particular flute that does that. I think the excitement you’re looking for may come in what I’m playing and how I’m playing. It may be a more rhythmic, exciting pattern. I mean, we’ll see what excitement sounds like. I don’t know. Or we may kind of just take a breath, man, as a crew. For us, this is mind-blowing. So we may have to kind of like, take a breather, like, whoa, what just happened? We may start excited then go into a meditative state — who knows?
Can you talk about the band you’re working with: Carlos Niño, Surya Botofasina, Nate Mercereau and Deantoni Parks.
What I will say is “New Blue Sun” is the fresh snow that’s fallen on the top of an iceberg that’s been moving for a long, long time. So when you talk about Carlos, Nate, Surya, Deantoni — these are class-A musicians in their field. This album would not be here if it wasn’t for Carlos Niño at all — I happenstance met Carlos at Erewhon — so he’s the visionary behind it all. A lot of this comes from me and Carlos talking about what I’m trying to do, me sending music I like, even sending just recordings of me playing on the porch. For what I am and what I do, and me not being a classically-trained flutist, this is the best situation that I could have presented this in.
Onstage now, you’re all collectively more in sync, with the benefit of having toured so much already. But even the parts that sound the tightest still maintain that air of “I don’t know what this is going to sound like 30 seconds from now.”
[Laughs] No, I swear, no. It’s never the same. Like 20, 30 years from now, these performances will show up and be put side-by-side, and they’ll see, like, they were not doing the same thing. We don’t know what’s happening 10 seconds from now. It’s pure trust. Every city we go to, we go to vintage stores, flea markets, music stores, and buy new instruments. And we may play them that night, fresh and new. So over time, the sounds have evolved. Like, we can’t do the same thing.
What you’re doing here might seem like it’s out in another galaxy, but it’s one extension of an idea that you and many others have been doing for decades at this point.
Yeah. And if you really follow it, I started producing Outkast records on “ATLiens.” On the first album I did nothing but write raps. So on “ATLiens,” you start to see a little bit of experimentation, then by the time you get to “Stankonia,” I’m experimenting even further. And then with “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below,” there’s melodic singing and I’m starting to pick up instruments and play them. On “Love Below,” there’s like a wacky saxophone on the end of “She Lives in My Lap,” that’s me because I love wind instruments, [expletive] around, you know? So I’ve always been into it. It’s like you just go further and further out of orbit. You started on Earth, and you just keep going.
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