André 3000 has taken a long time to get here.
Earlier this week, the mercurial rap legend announced the surprise release of a solo album—something the public has been clamoring for ever since OutKast seemingly rode off into the sunset over a decade ago. While his former partner, Big Boi, has cultivated a strong solo career since then, the more mysterious half of OutKast hasn’t released a full album since the duo’s 2006 soundtrack for their movie Idlewild. And he’s spent the past 17 years indulging his muse mostly away from music, while occasionally dropping guest verses on other artists’ prominent rap projects, seemingly on a whim.
Now, Three Stacks returns with New Blue Sun, an instrumental album of flute-driven songs that he co-produced with musical impresario Carlos Nino, a mainstay of the New Age jazz scene in California who’s worked with everyone from Miguel Atwood-Ferguson to Madlib. The preceding buzz this week for the album was expected—as was the speculation as to what it would sound like for one of the best rappers of all time to drop an album entirely devoid of rapping.
