André 3000 trades hip-hop for the flute – and still resonates with listeners

Our commentator says that even if the artist, one-half of the hit duo Outkast, doesn’t say a word in his new music, he’s still able to impact culture in a way that invokes creativity and healing. 

I was 15 years old when I received my first hip-hop album as a gift – a radio-edited version of “Aquemini,” by Outkast. I was drawn in by an infectious, bass-thumping single that shared the name of a Civil Rights Movement icon, Rosa Parks. Maybe it was mischief that drew me to the musical stylings of André Benjamin, aka André 3000, because my parents were rather strict about the type of music that ran through my ears. 

A quarter-century later, André’s music is still having a profound effect on me and how I listen to music. Back in the late 1990s, bass-thumping music caught the South’s ear and led to Atlanta’s rise in the hip-hop scene. Now, André’s flirtations with jazz music are taking myself and others beyond his cult of personality and into a deeper appreciation for instrumentation. During a week-long slate of shows at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, André was the headliner for the New Blue Sun tour, a monthslong trek highlighting his foray into being a flutist. 

“It’s not the typical André 3000 musical experience that we’ve all grown up listening to, but I felt like people were really receptive to it,” says Robert Boone Jr., a drummer who has won a Grammy with the Count Basie Orchestra and was in the audience in Atlanta. “There were no cell phones, so you had to sit there and listen to see what was going on. It honestly made me think, just even beyond the concert, ‘What can I do, or what can any type of instrumental musician do, to connect with the audience?”

André was always seen as the more improvisational and experimental member of Outkast, and so it has gone with the tour. “This is special,” he said as he and his band ran through their set. “This is new music that has never been played before, and will never be played again.” 

Superstars like Madonna and Prince made an art form of reinventing themselves regularly. But few pop stars have gone in as radical a direction as André 3000, who stepped away from a chart-topping career. The experimental rapper is one-half of the Atlanta-based duo who dominated charts in the early 2000s with their breakout double album, “SpeakerBoxxx/The Love Below,” with inescapable No. 1 hits such as “Hey Ya.” The duo also captured the imaginations of fans with introspective tunes like “Ms. Jackson” and “Elevators.”

During his set, rather than giving the audience “B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)” or any of his greatest hits, he debuted all new work as an instrumentalist.

In fact, Prince inspired André to start taking chances again. 

Ahead of the fall release of the album “New Blue Sun,” André recalled in a GQ interview a conversation he had with the late musician, who challenged him to rise to the greatness of his celebrity. 

After a 2014 show, as André recalls, Prince called to reprimand him for checking out halfway through. “‘You know what your problem is?’ Prince asked. … He said, ‘You don’t realize how big y’all are.’ And then he was like, ‘You got to remind people who you are.’”

For the hometown crowd in Atlanta, the experimentation felt true to the artist they have followed for decades. It reflects the character of the city, explained Brannon Carson and Kristen Medwick, married Atlanta natives who work as attorneys.

“What’s so cool about [the tour], and what’s so cool about Atlanta, is that it’s always evolving. The art is always evolving,” Ms. Medwick says. “When André was talking about paying attention to energies and being interested in something new and seeing where it takes him, that resonated with me.”

“This is kind of different and new, but it makes sense,” Mr. Carson adds. “He went from a pop rap superstar to a journeyman. … He’s not going to be pigeonholed into one thing.”

His experimentation appears to be resonating beyond his hometown, as evidenced by new tour dates and a new single. Saxophonist Kamasi Washington reached out to André to collaborate on “Dream State,” a lively and trippy jazz joint which Washington posted with a YouTube visual last week. André, always the kindred spirit, spoke admirably of the fellow woodwind player.

“When you receive a text from a wind friend something beautiful usually transpires,” André said in a press statement. “The day Kamasi invited me to a session for Fearless Movement I was so geeked and honored. Now, every time we get together something interesting happens. We first played during a recording session for New Blue Sun and it’s been fruitful ever since.”

It reminded this audience member of André 3000’s declaration from 1995, which became a rallying cry for the Southern hip-hop movement: “The South got something to say.” It is remarkable to think about just how transcendent an artist, and celebrity, he has become.

Even if he doesn’t say a word, he’s still able to impact culture in a way that invokes creativity and healing.