From 1992-2007 Andre 3000 was ½ of the duo Outkast, one of the most influential hip-hop acts of the day, popularizing “southern hip-hop.” While never officially breaking up, after 15 successful years Outkast decided to go their separate ways to work on solo projects. Like many successful artists, Andre Benjamin went on to release a clothing line, Benjamin Bixby. But when it came to music, his tastes and aesthetic took a surprising turn. In 2023, 16 years after the release of the final Outkast album, Andre 3000 released “New Blue Sun”. The artwork displays “Warning: no bars”, alerting would be listeners that they wouldn’t find him rapping on the tracks. But expectation are expectations, and many fans were shocked. What’s the furthest distance you can get from a rap album? Ambient flute is probably pretty close.
Outkast- "Bombs Over Baghdad"How did that happen? It’s a pretty cool story. He discussed it in an interview on Tetragramathon with Rick Rubin. Andre believes things happen for a reason. He’d recently moved into an unlikely house in Venice Beach and was attending a breathwork class when he heard the sound that would change his life’s trajectory. Lying on his mat after class, eyes closed, tuning into the hum lingering in his body from the meditative breath work he’d just finished, he was enveloped by the sound of a flute which seemed to connect directly with the sensations left from the meditation. When he opened his eyes, he talked with the player who directed him to the flute maker who would build him an instrument that would send him off on a new path. Sage was lit and both player and flute were smudged, bathed in smoke, before taking his instrument, to purify the beginning of the journey they were about to begin together. Andre began playing his flute daily, approaching it as a walking meditation. He played walking around his new Venice neighborhood. He played quietly in the back corner of his local coffee shop. He played to the sound of the waves, the grit of sand between his bare toes. Relying on intuition, he played what felt right. As the player tuned and refined his instrument, the flute tuned and refined the player. He was open, developed a practice, and was transformed in the process.
Take a moment. Turn everything else off and listen. “New Blue Sun” was not a rejection of his past as a rapper. It was acknowledgement of a new aspect of who Andre 3000 became. Open yourself to your practice and surprising things can happen. The more open you are, the more fully you’ll realize yourself, the more fully you can bring yourself into the world. And the more fully you bring yourself into the world the more positive your impact will be.
Until next week,Jason