New Blue Sun by André 3000 | Album Review

Yes, the new Blue album is here. That New Blue sum’ all the way from Stankonia, GA. How far has it traveled to get into your ears? Maybe not that far. Maybe you’re just a freeway or terminal away from the cafés and airports and airport cafés where a man stands playing a flute for no one in particular—maybe just himself. And if you’re that Georgia resident, that local Atlantan, there’s still nothing to it but pure, dumb luck to happen upon one of hip hop’s most respected names out doing his thing, playing the flute for no one in particular. We can’t all be that particular type of lucky, but today we are this other type of lucky, lucky to have André 3000’s New Blue Sun with us. Listen closely now with the instrumental project that’s half OutKast, full-assed and 3000 percent flute, played for you in particular.

Some few years of pent anticipation later and New Blue Sun arrives seemingly out of nowhere. From its announcement to its release the week following, the elusive André Benjamin has strung together his first piece of recorded noise in 17 years, and it’s not a rap record. To some, expectations surrounding releases from either head of the semi-known, underground hip hop duo called OutKast are there and may be difficult to suspend upon initial listens. I mean, the same guy who’s known for cult-favorite verses such as “All right, all right, all right, all right, all right… etc.” and “Hey ya! hey ya!” (from the eponymous track) breaks his creative silence with woodwinds and synths? It’s just too much.

“I swear, I Really Wanted To Make A “Rap” Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time.” Right from track one, Benjamin addresses “Hey Ya!” fans concern and presents a rather compelling reasoning for his departure from the style familiar. Expectations suspended. What of the record’s substance? Read on!

Forever wielding curiosities in his own myriad languages, André 3000 has established a fascinating artistic reputation with his stylistic writing and syllable-chasing, vivid rap punditry. Building upon his notes and tones in an improvisational style, 3000 begins telling his latest stories on New Blue Sun from scenes within scenes. Even way back with the early releases ATLiens and Aquemini, OutKast recounted stories from their drawn, layering rhyme and reason on and on to great critical success. Now, those ideas are alive and tantalizingly morph with Benjamin’s compositions to take on new contexts, new stories. What do the mediums matter when the stories are meant for all ears? When do the genre lines become blurred enough to cease being one preconceived thing and become something distinct? And most importantly, when does the music begin to take on new meanings and context for you, the listener? I mean, André 3000 knows that very few of his listeners were there “That Night In Hawaii When [he] Turned Into A Panther…,” but he leaves us to fill in our own interpretations between the notes. What we listen to, where when and how we listen all add meaning, and that’s why we listen. So, don’t just Skew It on the Background-B list queue, rather take whatever you hear with you into your everyday lives, you may just hear something you hadn’t before.

Of course, nothing new can exist without comparison to that which came before, at least when it comes to the pretentious vices of authors writing for independent music journals. On New Blue Sun, André 3000 gives space for his flutations to breathe, but that space is never empty. It may be rather quiet at times, but there is always something minimal filling that quiet, a sort of ambiance. “The Slang Word…” and “Ninety Three ‘Til Infinity And Beyoncé” both hold on to the electronically outfitted spirit of the early synthesizers celebrated broadly by ambient greats such as Harold Budd, Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, while progressing in slow the minimalism reminiscent of Japanese electronic composers Hiroshi Yoshimura and Susumu Yokota. The spacey “Ants [from up there??] To You, Gods To Who?” feels like its cut from the same meteoric-stuff as Nala Sinephro’s 2021 Space 1.8, and encroaching upon that particular galaxy of moogy moods and Hootie Hoos! 3000’s incorporation of varied traditional flute stylings (he plays many different types of flutes) with all this ambient inspiration could also owe influence to the remarkably talented, creative force of nature Shabaka Hutchings, a founding member of multiple jazz builds such as The Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka and the Ancestors. Influence from Hutchings’ solo Afrikan Culture released last year gushes through the vitals of New Blue and entangling with the two artists further, André Benjamin will add his flutonations (flute+intonations… idk I’ve made up two words already ahhh) as a collaborator for Shabaka’s follow-up record, set to release sometime. His longest track on the record, “Dreams Once Buried Beneath The Dungeon Floor…” scurries alongst the kingdom boarders of the great Pharoah Sanders, especially in the track’s latter half build and release of abounding percussion and braying reeds. Maybe he even listened to Adrianne Lenker’s 2020 instrumentals record for this one, with “Dreams Once Buried…” chiming in and out with, well, chimes as Lenker does with, well, “mostly chimes”—though, Big Thief’s AL was leastways transparent with her tracklist nomenclature on instrumentals.

It’s just my interpretation of the situation.

Whether or not you’re here for it, New Blue Sun is here for you. Waiting between the record’s quieter moments we might hear intentions, lying in patience waiting for the curious ear to pick upon curiosities and ponder stories and make stories of those stories. And if you do decide to listen, make sure to head to your nearest airport café and push a few aluminum chairs against a wall in an impromptu stage for the newest André 3000. Then let him do his thing.