We all know the story by now, but here’s a synopsis: In the early ’90s, two young Atlanta rappers start recording in the dirt-floored cellar that serves as their crew’s base of operations, then go on to release six albums of material that today stands not only as some of hip-hop’s most creative and genre-stretching work, but also its most successful.

That duo, of course, is OutKast, whose penultimate LP, 2003’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, officially became the highest-selling rap record of all time last year after 20th-anniversary celebrations brought a wave of new fans.

Despite that dizzying success, Big Boi and André 3000 haven’t released any music as OutKast since Idlewild in 2006. Though Big Boi kept rapping, André 3000 only dropped the occasional amazing feature verse, and mostly went silent.

But his silence belied an ongoing artistic evolution, which continued out of the spotlight. Occasionally, there’d be reports of him randomly popping up in the audience at jazz shows in New York, or on the street somewhere with his various flutes in hand. He’d developed a passion for playing improvised music on wind instruments, and had been spending years exploring them alone.

Three Stacks’ solo quest became communal upon a chance meeting with jazz musician Carlos Niño, at a supermarket in Los Angeles. Together they took André’s flute explorations into a fully improvised band setting.

Almost exactly a year ago, André released New Blue Sun, an album that combines minimalist modern composition, spiritual free jazz and ambient electronica. In conversations with fellow hip-hop- and jazz-heads, online forums and Facebook groups, I’ve seen that album heralded by some as the best deep meditation music ever and bemoaned by others who were disappointed that a lyricist that legitimately belongs on hip-hop’s G.O.A.T. list didn’t spit any raps on his first-ever solo album.

André and the New Blue Sun personnel have been playing festivals and jazz rooms for the past year. Now, the project arrives in D.C. with a performance at the Kennedy Center this Saturday. Ahead of that concert, CapitalBop connected with André 3000 by phone to discuss his process of constant creative discovery, the jazz legacies he’s tapping into and his own personal editing process.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

CapitalBop: I’ve heard you discuss the experience of picking up wind instruments as something like becoming a baby again in your art practice.

André 3000: Yeah, only because there’s newness in it. But I’d been playing for like six or seven years before I even put this album out. I started playing and really enjoyed playing, and found a way to share it a little bit more than just walking around by myself. It was just really a personal thing that I enjoyed doing on my hikes, or just walking out in public or in nature, but I really enjoyed it.

CB: And was it, like, a curiosity-driven process? I’ve heard you say that you tried different instruments, and the wind instruments really resonated with you.

A3: I’ve always picked up things just to try, out of curiosity. Either a guitar or bass – I had picked up a saxophone and bass clarinet before even going down this way. So I always was interested in wind instruments in some type of way. Even the song that myself and James Blake released a few years ago, that was like an improv bass-clarinet situation. And I don’t even know if people remember, but that was maybe one of the first examples. Actually, one of the very first recordings was on The Love Below, at the end of the song “She Lives in My Lap.” It was, like, more noises than anything. But then next was the James Blake thing. So now I’m here in a different way, but I’ve always been interested in wind instruments.

CB: Do you think that there’s a link between the curiosity in your wind instrument practice and your rapping practice? Or did they come from different places within you?

A3: Well, different places, but rap got me here. Rap got me into music, got me into paying attention to different records. And when I started producing for OutKast, it got me into looking at album credits and players: who played with who, and players from back in the day.

I discovered jazz late in life. Coltrane was a huge influence on me, and got me down the path of wanting to play. I wanted to know: “How is he doing that? How can I get as close as I can to what him and Eric Dolphy were doing?” Coltrane and Dave Brubeck may have gotten me into wanting to know more about that type of music. But as a child growing up in hip-hop, I thought jazz was old-people music. And then I discovered it on my own. 

Coltrane was a huge influence on me … ‘How is he doing that? How can I get as close as I can to what him and Eric Dolphy were doing?’

CB: I read somewhere that you did not write your rhymes.

A3: When I say that, I think sometimes there’s a misconception. When people say they don’t write their rhymes, they don’t write them down. It’s like a process of building a wall and starting from brick, brick, brick. You are repeating phrases over and over, then you repeat those two phrases over and over, then you repeat the three phrases over and over. By the time you get to the end, you’ve learned it. So it’s like mind-building, more than writing it down on paper.

CB: When I think about that process and then I listen to what you’re doing now, I know that nothing was planned out on the record and in your performances. Is there connectivity between how you constructed rhymes and how you play improvised music?

A3: Yeah, it’s a different beast in itself. I think because the delivery point with words is different. We’re all in agreeance that we speak English, and so you’re using that as your basis. With this music, it’s just sounds, so that could go anywhere. Because I haven’t studied music theory, or don’t know what keys or notes that I’m playing. I recognize it as what it is, but I can’t call it out. I can’t say, “Oh, I’m playing a C sharp.” I just came up in hip-hop, so I never had time to study it in that way. So I play only by ear. It’s like just feeling out in the dark and seeing what works.

CB: Is that scary?

A3: Very! But at the same time, the reward is greater, because you know that it’s a pure, physical kind of listening and connectivity thing that you have with what’s going on with the people around you. So the actual physical exercise of doing it is the joy, you know?

CB: You’ve been out in the world on stages doing this for a year now. How has that muscle developed since you released the album?

A3: I mean, it’s just like anything you do: It grows. You get more comfortable with being uncomfortable, or more comfortable with stretching, or more comfortable with just listening. Like sometimes you don’t have to even play. Sometimes you sit and listen for a minute until you feel like it’s time, instead of feeling like: I have to do something. So it’s more understanding of space.

CB: So when the idea hits, you can just jump out with it and not question yourself.

A3: Yup. And then you have to have willing participants to understand what’s happening. It’s not like we’re jamming or just catching a groove. It is a pure exploration of figuring out in space what we’re doing. It’s a completely different thing from just locking in and grooving along.

CB: This journey started very personal and insular. And then people started seeing you around, like, “Yo, André with the flute!” Then you’ve said it’s gotten kind of weird because people want to put you on social media. Then you made a conscious decision that you wanted to really share what you’ve been doing. How is your practice different now that it includes a serious conversation with a lot of people?

A3: Well, two things have happened. I actually play less in public because it’s a thing now. Before, if I’m walking around it’s just like, “Oh, that’s just this dude with the flute,” okay, cool. Now it’s like, “Oh, that’s André and he’s doing his flute thing. Let’s record him!” I have to sneak off and find private places to practice and to be. I walk a lot. I try to walk five, six miles a day. So I try to find little cuts to play in, which is what I used to do naturally – but now I don’t do as much. 

But another cool thing is, because we’ve made the decision to take it out on the road, we’re playing every night. We’re exploring every night. You’re trying to keep yourself fresh and new. Every city we go in, we go to music shops, we go to instrument stores, flea markets and vintage shops. We try to find things that make noise. I’m buying instruments all the time, and we may incorporate it that actual night, because the newness is what I’m after too.

The first song on New Blue Sun, that electric wind instrument – I took it out of the box 20 minutes before we recorded that song. What you’re hearing is me discovering a thing. And discovery is hard to fake. You can’t fake newness. So a lot of what I’m looking for is a kind of childlike newness, and then the excitement of discovery. The excitement of seeing a kid dance is awesome. They may not even be on beat, but you know, they in it!

I’m always trying to figure out: What am I interested in? That’s my only gauge

CB: You were talking about the first track on the album with the electronic wind instrument, and also how your practice involves walking around within nature. As I was listening to the record I thought, “This patch sounds like birds.” Was that conscious or serendipitous?

A3: Sometimes I actually try to mimic birds. Because I’m not a trained, conservatory-school jazz player, and don’t know all the scales and all the notes and all the chords, I have to find my own personal way to get to it. I have to find something that’s authentic for me. I try to find something that I can contribute to the music that someone can learn from.

So I physically play, and I kind of nature-play. What I mean by that is like, when you’re outside and listening to two or three birds at the same time go at it, they may repeat phrases over and over again. I try to play that way a lot of times. And some of my favorite modern classical composers are more repetitious, like Steve Reich. So it’s not like a Beethoven type of thing where you’re doing these wild, big scores. They may actually repeat rhythmic phrases like birds do. My first wind instruments in this era were Mesoamerican and Native American flutes. And in that culture, it’s nature playing. Even my flute master who makes my flutes, who was teaching me how to make flutes, their Native American fable is to play like the birds. So a lot of times I’m mimicking birds, even how I play it.

CB: New Blue Sun has a song titled “Dreams Once Buried Beneath the Dungeon Floor Slowly Sprout into Undying Gardens”. If you went back to young Dre in the dungeon and played New Blue Sun, what does young Dre say to 2024 Dre?

A3: Man, I would be like “Wow!” This is stretching out like I’m in a whole ‘nother world. This is a different world. And the crazy thing about that is – and I say it in shows too – when me and Big Boi started rapping, it’s the same thing: You discover something that you like, and you start at it as a kid. You start childlike, you start throwing your little raps. And over time, you develop a thing, or you develop a muscle, or you start to find a sound.

And it’s all coming from the same place. You couldn’t have told me when I was 19 that I would be doing this now. No kind of way! But then at the same time, when we first started OutKast, you couldn’t have told me that I would be producing. You couldn’t have told me that I’ll be picking up instruments. You couldn’t tell me that I’d be making The Love Below.

So for me, it’s all discovery. It’s all me just trying things to see what I can keep myself interested in. How can I keep pushing and how can I keep making what I’m making exciting to me, and hopefully to others? I don’t know what I’m gonna be doing next year, and that’s the exciting part.

It’s funny, when I first started playing wind instruments, and before I met Carlos, my idea of what the album would be was completely different than New Blue Sun. It was way more structured. It was way more, like, you could probably mix it with other things. Maybe I may go back to something like that. Who knows? I don’t know what it’s gonna be, but I’m always trying to figure out: What am I interested in? That’s my only gauge. If I’m excited about it enough to be excited, it may excite someone else. But if I’m not engaged in that way, I can’t expect anyone else to be engaged, you know?

CB: Young Dre would listen to this and his mind would be blown. And then Today Dre would tell Young Dre to stay excited and stay curious.

A3: Man, always. And that’s in rap too. Find new ways to do it. I think there was a big misconception, because I’d say, “Oh man, I’m 47. What am I gonna rap about? A colonoscopy?” To be honest, that was a joke, because I was thinking about doing stand up at some point, and that was one of my jokes!

I think one of the biggest problems with artists now is you’re sharing everything. And that’s not the way

CB: But I gotta get one of those this year anyway!

A3: It’s a real thing, you know? And it was really one of my jokes for my stand up. And I think the world took it like, “Oh, André say you don’t have nothing to talk about when you get old.” No, you always have something to talk about. Life goes on. But one thing about rapping and getting older, what people don’t realize is, you don’t get wacker as you get older. No, that doesn’t happen. But what does happen is the world has moved beyond you and keeps moving, and you have to keep doing what you are excited to do. And yes, if I find a way to do rhythmic words again in some kind of way that feels new and fresh and interesting to me, hell yeah, I’m gonna do it. So it’s not like you get to a certain age and you just stop. No, it’s not that at all.

For me, I have to find a way to really be awesome at it, or excited about it, for me to even offer it to the world. I don’t want to just check in and do something just because I know I can do that flow. That’s not exciting to me. So I have to find ways to do it. But I don’t want people to feel like, Oh, you get a certain age and you stop rapping, because there’s so many of my homies still rapping over 50.

CB: All of my crew is still nice!

A3: That’s what I’m saying. Age doesn’t necessarily coincide with niceness. But what age does do is coincide with the zeitgeist of the world. And you have to be real about that. People don’t understand when I say that. I think there’s a prime for everything. And I think rappers want to be like, “No, no, we, we still got it!” Yeah, you still got it, but the world is different.

To me, it’s nature’s way of keeping things even. That’s how it is. The youth always have the flashlights and compasses. They always have the new way to go. But it’s supposed to be that way, you know, and we gotta respect that.

CB: So are you going to go back to another practice and develop it in private, or do you feel like you want to keep sharing your discovery process with people, with us?

A3: Well, both. I think everything is not meant to be shared. I actually think we’re in a time now where everyone thinks that every thought needs to be shared. And that’s not the way. We have brains! We have minds to decipher what we want to say. Sometimes you may be angry at somebody and want to say something. You don’t really need to say that. That’s just a thought. Every thought is not true. You know, it’s just your brain, your expansive brain, that has options.But every option doesn’t need to be heard. So, I think one of the biggest problems with artists now is you’re sharing everything. And that’s not the way. I think you have to cultivate, you have to edit. That’s art: the actual choices that you make.

CB: Yeah, that’s the sauce. Cutting stuff down is the sauce.

A3: That’s what it is. The editing, man! You don’t share everything. Sometimes it’s development. Like, it’s cool now that they have the technology where they can take a Picasso painting and scan it and see the many layers that it took for him to get to that. Like, there are three or four paintings under the one we see now.

CB: Yep, all the brush strokes and everything.

A3: Yeah, now they can see that he made choices to go over that like, “Oh no, not ready. Not okay. But this is the one.” So if we’re in a world where people are stealing Picasso’s paintings while he’s working on it, that’s not a good world, man. And that’s where we are now. I think people feel entitled. People hack into people’s studio sessions because they feel entitled. “Oh, we need it, this is ours.” No, it’s not! That’s not the way, man. We gotta get away from that. We’re not entitled to everything, and every thought shouldn’t be shared. 

There’s a reason for publishers. And we got to publish our own thoughts in a certain way. We got to organize our thoughts. I mean, we’d be in Babel if everyone just spewed everything they thought about. Now, that’s kind of where we are now. Social media kind of does that.

I’ll go edit out things and share things that I feel need to be shared. It is a conversation.

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