André 3000: ‘I’d Rather Go Amateur Interesting Than Master Boring’

W
est Los Angeles’ Gjusta Bakery is bustling on a sunny Friday afternoon. Seven-foot-high stacks of flour bags lay near the entrance, soon to be turned into pastries. The main room is full of locals seeking an early-afternoon pick-me-up, but the backyard is quieter, with rustic tables and large plants under a makeshift roof made of golden tarp. 

André 3000 walks in unassumingly, dapping me and joking that our shared first name is a great one. I agree as we sit and get acquainted over matcha lattes. Dressed in a camouflage jacket, pants in a different camo pattern, and his trademark red beanie, André mentions that he’s been under the weather after traveling home from Japan, where he and his bandmates recently played six improvised instrumental shows at Blue Note Tokyo.

 “Have you been to Japan yet?” he asks. When I tell him I haven’t, he grows enthusiastic: “Japan is going to blow your fucking mind. I’m considering moving to Japan. Whatever you’re doing, it makes you want to do it 10 times better. They do so much at a high level.”

His 2023 release, New Blue Sun, is up for an Album of the Year Grammy, which, he says, is a pleasant surprise for a fluting journey that began as leisure during his long walks. André, 49, was spotted playing the flute as early as 2019 in Philadelphia, and his globe-trotting woodwind exploits have gone viral many times since then. The album, he says, came about just as casually: Producer and percussionist Carlos Niño ran into André not far from where we’re sitting and invited him to an Alice Coltrane tribute concert. Over time, André, Niño, and musicians including Nate Mercereau, Surya Botofasina, and Deantoni Parks began jamming together.

Leaning back in his chair and talking calmly with his hands gently clasped, he’s resolute that New Blue Sun isn’t a “flute album” — he’s a flutist collaborating with other instrumentalists. But he also happens to be one of the most revered rappers ever as one half of OutKast, which colors fan response to his new project. Hip-hop heads have long clamored for him and Big Boi to release a follow-up to OutKast’s last album, 2006’s Idlewild, and/or for André 3000 to drop a solo rap album. He’s done neither, and recently riled many by saying that it feels “inauthentic” for him to rap these days. While he’s since clarified that he is open to eventually making a solo rap album, that’s not how he’s currently expressing himself.

Today, he’s carrying a weathered Maya drone flute custom-made by craftsman Guillermo Martinez. He picks at a fraying direction hole on the seven-year-old instrument, noting he needs to have it fixed. Twice during our interview, fans walk back to our table to thank him. He’s gracious both times. “I love your music so much,” one woman says. “Can’t wait for more.”  “Me too,” André replies.

What appeals to you about moving to Japan? Is it primarily the creative inspiration?
My age. Where I am in life. Just trying to plan out my next 10 years. I’m saying Japan now, but I’ve been considering other cities. I’m at a place where it’s more important for me to be less front-facing and really dig into something that’s going to outlast me. I think as you get older, you start thinking about mortality.

How do thoughts on mortality affect your priorities, especially being a rapper and unfortunately seeing so many peers passing at premature ages? 
It’s just further down the road. I think when most people start rapping, they start rapping young. I liken it to boxing a lot. Most people don’t start boxing when they’re 50. I mean, you can. But the prime strengths come from youth, in rapping. And I know I get a lot of shit from it — a lot of people disagree with me. I’m not saying there’s an age limit on rapping at all. It’s just that the parts that I love about rapping, they come from a certain age. People don’t like when I say that, because there’s older rappers now that are killing. And I always feel like as long as it’s in you and you’re inspired to do it, you should do it.

How do you feel the perspective of older artists adds to the overall discourse?
It’s awesome because it shows younger artists “I can still do this as I age, too.” I was speaking to a young artist,  and we were having the same conversation. I was telling this artist how I felt about getting older, and they said, “You’re showing us what to do when we get that age.” 

That made me think. I have to be careful about how I speak about it. I want to be honest and stand on what I believe in, and my thoughts about it, but at the same time, I never want it to come off as negative or uninspiring. I’m trying to find a way to say the truth about how I feel about it, but at the same time, not stop anyone from doing anything.

You’ve had amazing features as a rapper over the past couple of decades. What do you think it is, where you can’t capture that magic and extend it to a full project?
I have no idea. If I knew that, I probably would have done an album. Sometimes, I ask myself … Some people are solo artists, some people are in groups. My whole career was in a group, outside of The Love Below [André’s half of OutKast’s 2003 double album]. The Love Below was supposed to be a film. I was making my own soundtrack to the film, so it pushed me to do a certain type of thing. But I’ve been in a group most of my career. I was able to feed off of someone else. 

And maybe I’m just not a solo rap artist. I only feature when inspired by the artist I was with. Many artists send me music. I was feeding off of them, and it was a chemistry thing more than anything.

How did your close friends and peers react when you told them you were doing a flute album?
I didn’t tell them I was doing a flute album. I just sat down and said, “Hey, check out this new stuff that I’m doing.” And the feedback I got was positive. And not just friends, either. I sat down with colleagues, even younger people, to get their opinion of it. It was interesting to hear opinions from all kind of places, and to physically see people calm down or fall asleep.

I was listening to your conversation on Questlove’s podcast, and he said he was playing your album to help him sleep or feel calm.
I enjoy hearing that. One of the big reasons why I released this project was because I was looking for a slower, more muted [sound], not a loud thing. The whole time we were working on the album and listening to the mixes, I enjoyed it as a piece of work, as background music to what’s happening. 

That’s beautiful, because as a rapper, the last thing you would want anybody to do is say “I fall asleep to your music.”
Yeah. Here’s the funny thing: You ask most hip-hop artists what they listen to, it’s not rap most of the time. Some of my first lyrics on Southernplayalistic [OutKast’s 1994 debut], I actually wrote them to R&B songs, and then put them on rap beats. A lot of times what we’re responding to is a feeling. Rappers talk about riding around listening to a certain R&B or jazz artist. I don’t really ride around listening to rap real loud like I used to. Sometimes, I get that feeling, and it’s usually some young dudes, some Future or something like that. It’s usually some of that. It’s an unhinged kind of thing that I like.

Even an artist like Future, he’s older than most new artists. He’s using young producers. The sound. And he knows. Like, Future is from the Dungeon [producer Rico Wade’s famed Atlanta studio, where OutKast worked in the Nineties], but his beats aren’t done by Organized Noize. I think Future would have a different career if he was produced by them. Not a bad career or anything, but—

Just different. 
Yeah, and I think the zeitgeist of the young producers getting new rhythms for him to rock on makes him rock a different way. I describe rapping as you get older like going to a picnic and sitting around with your favorite uncle. You’re seeing him dance to a song a certain way. The young kids are over there dancing a totally different way because their rhythm is different. They grew up on completely different rhythms. You usually can age a rapper by his rhythms, and you can age a dancer by how they dance. It’s the same thing.

That’s so true.
You can be an older person and learn the new dances if you’re prone to do it, but naturally, rhythms age people. I’ve heard people say, “Well, this classic artist came back and made this new, groundbreaking thing.” They use young producers. Like, when we were kids, Tina Turner, she was 50 years old, doing songs that we would hear on the radio. If she would’ve continued doing the Ike and Tina thing, we probably never would have heard of her. But she got new, young producers to push her a certain way. Even [Carlos] Santana. People would talk about “Santana, he’s a classical artist.” He came back and did the solo on a young person’s song. 

You’ve said that your journey with fluting and meeting your bandmates was a matter of fate. How much do you think the journey toward a solo rap album will also be a matter of fate?
Yep. Same. I think what would help me make a rap album is being around rappers. When I moved to California, I wasn’t writing. I’ve talked to Kendrick [Lamar]. We talked, listened to beats. Same with Drake. And as a rapper, they would be surprised to hear me say this, but at one point, I was like, “Man, it would be cool to just hang out with them to get the energy of rapping.” Because when they’re doing it so constantly, something got to drip off. They do four, five songs a day, and I’m like, “What?”  

I don’t even go to the studio like that. I haven’t touched my drum machine in ages. I’m just now getting back to producing songs. And because of the journey of New Blue Sun, I’m buying new instruments in every city, putting them onstage as an amateur. 

In what ways have you shown your respect for the existing ecosystem of instrumentalists in the music you’re exploring?
It’s all respect. We play a lot of jazz festivals with top-notch jazz artists. I’m almost always intimidated when I go into these spaces because I know what they are. They’ve spent years going through scales and changes, and I do none of that.

What I’ve noticed is, they all watch the show backstage. What they have to say is very inspiring, and I’m happy that we’re contributing to them as well. Some of the top players, they was like, “Man, that was so awesome and so free, it made me want to jump up and get up there with y’all.” That’s special to hear, because they see where we’re coming from.

We’ve gotten more love than hate in these spaces. And real love, you can tell it, because they respond and they say certain things. Like, they may pull my keyboardist to the side and they may ask, “OK, so for real, man. Tell me y’all practiced that?” And they’re like, “No.” [Laughs.] It’ll be known players. And then, we get terrible reviews sometimes, too. You can tell if they didn’t respect it.

I get texts from musicians now like, “Hey, man, let me know. I want to get up there with y’all.” We were in Philly, and we had Marshall Allen. He’s 100 years old. He’s the longest surviving member of the Sun Ra Arkestra. When Marshall came up, and he’s down there with a saxophone…. It meant a lot to me.

As much as you play the flute, could you see yourself exploring another instrument as extensively?
Oh, for sure. We have a practice in every city we go to, in and out of the country. We’ll go to antique shops, flea markets, music stores and purchase instruments. All kinds of instruments, and I play them. It’s a true sound exploration. I’ve been doing that all this time. This is just the freest form of it. Like, when you listen to “Hey Ya!,” those are some of the first guitar chords I ever learned. I just kept repeating them. “Ms. Jackson,” the same thing. 

Like, I can’t tell you what chord [I’m playing]. A musician that’s gone to school could. But you just lay your fingers down like, “Oh, I like that.” It’s always been that, messing around with instruments and seeing what I can get out of them. Discovery is as important as recording and mastering something. You’ll never get that time again. You can’t fake doing something for the first time. I think mastering something as an artist is an awesome thing, but, I guess, it depends on what you’re trying to do and what you’re trying to say. Picasso’s a master, but his most famous quote is [something like] “We’re all just trying to figure out how to get back to being a kid.” The openness of it. I think if you can find that early on, keep finding that. Because sometimes, mastering shit can get boring. I’d rather go amateur interesting than master boring.

What are some of your lasting memories of making music in the Dungeon?
Being together broke. Creating a world and then introducing the world to our world. As a youngster, to be a part of a brotherhood, especially as an only child, was special to me. Everything that I’m doing now, I can tie all of this back to my Dungeon start. All the people around me were pushing me. It showed me how to push myself. 

Rico Wade died earlier this year. How would you sum up his legacy? 
Sometimes, when you think about the importance of people, the only thing you have to do is take them away and say, “What would music be?” Not just Atlanta music. Not just OutKast. What would music be without a Rico Wade that schooled us, that pushed Goodie Mob, TLC? A lot of things would change — not for better or worse, but it would not be what it is right now, and I know that for a fact.

You and Big Boi did the “good-rapper prayer” every night as aspiring artists. How did it feel after your commercial success, where you weren’t just considered good rappers, but among the biggest and best rappers?
I didn’t feel that until I stopped and took a break. When you’re in it, you’re just focused. I think it’s only now that people are saying it. I have a four-year-old niece, and she’s old enough now to go on YouTube and see all our OutKast stuff. She sent a voice text the other day saying, “Uncle André, I saw these videos on Instagram and YouTube! There was a lot of them!” [Laughs.] And in my mind, I’m thinking, “Does she think I’m a YouTube star that had a lot of videos?” It makes me go back and realize, “Oh, that’s a lot of stuff that we did.”

Then the other day, I did this LeBron The Shop interview, and they were talking about a rap that I did a long time ago. I had forgotten about the rap, so I wanted to go back and hear the rap, so I YouTubed it. Five hours later, I went down the whole rabbit hole of all of our stuff. It’s amazing to hear yourself, from 18 years old till now. I’m just now understanding the weight of what’s happened to me.

What are some of your favorite things to do with Big Boi as friends? 
Jone [Southern slang meaning make fun, joke around]. Laugh. In Atlanta, it’s pure jone culture. If you grew up in Atlanta, you done got joned on, and you done joned some other people. It’s a way to play. It makes you tough. It makes you see things about yourself, see things about other people. And you see it now on Instagram. People jone in the comments and say funny shit about people. We have our own inside jokes. We’ll jone on each other. We’ll jone on other people.  

What do you enjoy most about a long walk?
It’s a good way to solve a problem. And I think it’s a good way to write, too. You walk, you write, have a beat on for a long time. I usually walk from here to Santa Monica and back, which is like five, six miles. It’s a good time to think of what you got to do for the day. And it’s good exercise.

You craft verses in your head?
Yeah. I don’t necessarily write. I know there’s this thing with rappers like, “I don’t write.” I don’t know their process, but for me, it’s like building a house from the ground. You start at a place and you learn the foundation, and you keep repeating the foundation until you make the first level. And then you repeat the first, second level. By the time you get to the 50th floor, you repeated it 49 times, so it’s in your head by the time you finish. 

What are the similarities and differences in being in a hip-hop duo versus a band?
In hip-hop performing, the work is pretty much already done when you put the album out. People know the choruses, the lyrics. Where in this situation [with New Blue Sun], it’s purely listening every second of the way, because you never know what’s coming. You have to respond. It’s the total opposite of hip-hop in that way, unless you’re freestyling.

I want to jump back to something you said earlier. What was the response when you told Drake and Kendrick you’d be down to hang out with them?
No, I didn’t say it. I thought it in my head. I was like, “Man, it would be a good exercise just to hang around.” That’s how songs happen sometimes. I never expressed this to them, but I was so inspired because of their output. Like, when you’re in a groove it can be infectious — as opposed to approaching it in a casual way, which, that’s where I am now.

I rarely write rhymes, but I do write down my thoughts. And naturally, sometimes there may be a rhyming word to it. People still send beats all the time. So, yeah, I try.

Do you journal?
Nah, I just jot down thoughts that I think would be interesting. Sometimes they’re music. Sometimes they’re things that may translate into visual art. Or sometimes, it may be the title of something I’m trying to do. It’s almost like a way to stockpile ideas, because they always come back.

You’re working on a work-wear brand called From Now on They Will Have No Choice But to Call Us the Ants. What is the origin of the name?
Just admiring ants. I watch YouTube a lot. I call it going to the YouTube University. You go down the rabbit holes. A few years ago, I got into ants really hard. Like, every documentary I could find about ants, it was just interesting to find out about them, and what I thought humans could learn from ants. I was like, “Who are the best workers? Ants.” 

I know they can carry many times their weight. Are there any other interesting facts about ants?
Signals that they send each other. There is such a thing as lazy ants, too. Just like niggas. It’s some niggas that don’t want to do nothing [laughs]. And once you’re discovered in an anthill that you’re not doing shit, they’ll kick you out. Ants are the business, man.

Do you have any New Year’s resolutions for 2025?
Figure out where I’m living next year. I think it’s time to move, but I don’t know where. I think I’ll start going places and just feel them out first. Staying there for a month or two. Japan, right now, is top. Amsterdam is another place. Mexico City is another place. Seattle, still in the United States.… But I think I want to live abroad.

What was the impetus for the flag on the Stankonia cover?
I designed that flag, and we had it made. I was inspired by a lot of Americana images, and a lot of bands like MC5 used it. Sly Stone [on] There’s a Riot Goin’ On. And Parliament Funkadelic. I was trying to find a way to use the flag, but say something different. So, making it black and white was taking the color out. For me, it was saying how I felt America was at the time. Like, we’re kind of lost.

What’s your relationship with spirituality?
I do believe there’s something higher going on that’s dictating what we’re doing. I’m not a religious person, even though I grew up in a religious household. I just have way more questions and doubt about religion as we know it. I do enjoy the things that religion has inspired, so I can’t be mad at that. I do think there’s possibly been a lot of manmade religion. Just trying to work my way around that and get to the essence of things instead of the human side of it.

What have you learned the most from fatherhood?
Daily being around is important. Building that relationship is super important. And knowing that even at 49, I’m still figuring stuff out. I’m still learning, so the best thing I can tell my kid is that … I think a lot of time with parents, because we have the role of protecting them, we get that confused with trying to present a perfected version of ourselves, and get so hard on the kids that it makes it hard for them to feel like they can live up to that. One of the biggest lessons that my mom taught me when I was, like, 35 was that, yeah, hardships will come, there will be imperfections, but we get through it and we’re all trying to figure this thing out. We got a long way to go as humans. Like, if we look around now, we invented a lot of cool shit, but you got to think, in the 1700s, they probably thought the same thing.

It’s the whole “It doesn’t get better than this.”
That’s what I’m saying. Like, in the 1960s, they’re like, “This is the future.” But now we’re like, “Nah, this is the future. We about to get into quantum computers, man. We got AI.”

One hundred years from now, man, they’re going to be like…. I just feel like it’s an ongoing experiment with humans, and we learn every day what’s real and what’s not real. Or, what we thought was real is not necessarily that important. I won’t be around, but I can’t wait till a few hundred years from now and they look back at all the stuff that we were doing. It’s going to be something that we’re doing right now that they’re going to be laughing at. “Hold up, so they did what?” [Laughs.] And it’s something that we think is totally right.

How much do you think about re-pursuing acting?
All the time. I still get scripts. I’m thinking more about writing my own projects, but, yeah, always. If there’s something good that comes across the table that I feel like I can contribute to, I’ll jump in. I have a few ideas.

Are they any particular genre of film?
Comedy and thrillers. I’m a fan of those two genres, mostly. I do like certain horrors, but I like thrillers more than horrors.

What’s your mindset on new OutKast music now?
I’ll say maybe 10, 15 years ago, in my mind, I thought an OutKast album would happen. I don’t know the future, but I can say that we’re further away from it than we’ve ever been. I think it’s a chemistry thing. We have to be wanting to do it. It’s hard for me to make a rap, period, you know? And sometimes I’m in the belief of “Let things be.”

It was a great time in life, and our chemistry was at a certain place that was undeniable. And I think the audience sometimes believes that something has to last forever, and I don’t think that. Any kind of art form, I think that’s probably the opposite. It probably should not last forever. It’s not like a product. In the end, we did give a product, but what made that product was a certain time in both of our lives. 

It’s not like we’re Coca-Cola, where it’s this formula that you can always press a button and it’ll happen. I think the audience feels that way. But the audience never knows what it takes to make what they’re getting. I can’t blame them for that. 

Would you be open to doing a farewell tour?
No, I doubt that. We did a tour in 2014. And I knew when I was, like, 25, that at a certain age I wouldn’t want to be onstage doing those songs. They required a certain energy. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of looking back. I’m just not. I’m grateful for everything that’s happened, but it was a time. To me, that’s what it is. That was a great time, and I wish y’all were there. 

How do you feel about fan entitlement? They love your raps and they want more, but you’re doing what you want to do. 
Yeah, sometimes they don’t meet, but I totally understand it. I don’t blame the fan for wanting what they’ve known. I know, for the rest of my life, people will be like, “One more OutKast album.” And I try to put myself in the shoes of other people, and I’m like, “Man, if we ain’t do an OutKast album in 20 years, do y’all really think it’s going to happen now?”

Even when New Blue Sun came out, people were like, “Man, this is his first solo album in 17 years.” If a person hasn’t given you a solo album in 17 years, do you really think that was going to happen? I don’t know, maybe I just think differently. I know I wouldn’t be sitting around waiting.

Where were you when you found out about the Grammy nomination?
We were in Virginia. It may have been Richmond. I went for a walk, because I was waking up and my manager hit me like, “Hey, y’all got a Grammy nomination.” I was expecting that we would hopefully get in the category of Alternative Jazz, because people call it a jazz album. I was totally surprised when they said the Album of the Year category. I just had to go for a walk.

What are y’all planning to do if you win?
I’m trying to not to think of winning, because honestly, I know people say this trite shit, but I’m happy to be nominated. More than anything. You got to understand we’re in a category with Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, all these very popular albums, and this non-word album — no vocals — is in the category. We’ve won already, in our head. Not won the actual award. But, we’ve won because people will now check it out. That was my goal after we recorded it and put it out. That was the only goal. I do hope they let us perform on the Grammys. That would be killer if we could.