André 3000 has dropped a surprise EP following his particularly noteable Met Gala appearance last night (May 5).
Wearing an enormous piano strapped to his back on the red carpet, the former OutKast rapper released the follow-up to his debut solo album ‘New Blue Sun’ in 2023, an EP entitled ‘7 Piano Sketches’.
Like his debut album, André playfully warned that the EP featured “no bars” on social media, adding that the EP was a series of improvisations on piano mostly recorded at a house in Texas. “These piano pieces weren’t recorded with the intention of presenting them in any formal way to the public,” he continued. “They were personal, at home recordings. I would sometimes text them to my family and friends.”
André added that the songs had been recorded almost a decade before ‘New Blue Sun’, originally titled as ‘The Best Worst Rap Album In History’. He went on to share a snippet of the original liner notes, which read: “It’s jokingly the worst rap album in history because there are no lyrics on it at all. It’s the best because it’s the free-est emotionally and best I’ve felt personally. It’s the best because it’s like a palette cleanser for me.”
Check out the tracklist for ‘7 Piano Sketches’ below:
André 3000’s tracklisting for ‘7 Piano Sketches’ is:
‘bluffing in the snow’
‘and then one day you’ll …’
‘when you’re a ant and you wake up in an awesome mood, about to drive your son to school, only to discover that you left the lights on in the car last night so your battery is drained’
‘hotel lobby pianos’
‘blueberry mansions’
‘off rhythm laughter’
‘i spend all day waiting for the night’
Fans have been speculating that Andre would release new music since November last year. The musician told Amazon Music that he would be releasing new material “for sure”, but did not make any formal announcements until a few days ago, where he posted mysterious images of posters relating to a missing notebook.
The poster claimed André had lost a notebook with “black sketches and notes inside”. They add it had been “last seen in Amsterdam Noord on March 29” and linked to a website titled ‘A Myriad Of Pyramids’ where fans can download the poster.
According to Stereogum, however, the musician’s representatives confirmed that the poster actually pertains to a lost notebook from the musician.
André’s instrumental EP comes amidst comments he made in 2023 claiming he had “aged” out of raps, telling GQ: “Sometimes it feels inauthentic for me to rap because I don’t have anything to talk about in that way. 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….”
In other news, André has said OutKast are “further away” from new music than “we have ever been”.
