ANDRÉ 3000 - New Blue Sun

It's easy to lose track of episodes in the world of podcasts, there are simply too many to follow. But that time André 3000 stopped by Rick Rubin's place to confess his inner turmoil, the internet couldn't help but hold its breath. It wasn't just creative block holding him back, but a full-blown existential crisis, one that erased the popstar persona and shook the man and family father behind it. It's impossible not to feel empathy in the face of such disarming confessions from the very same rapper who once commanded stages across the globe with magnificent flair. On the other hand, alongside his trusty partner Big Boi under the banner of Outkast, André reached a near-unique position, being among the few artists who can claim multi-million-selling records alongside unanimous critical acclaim, all while keeping intact the complete devotion of the community he came from, within which he is still rightly regarded as one of the greatest authors in the history of hip-hop. But that's not all, because when the crisis hit, André stopped right at the edge of the abyss, certainly losing a large part of himself, but avoiding the pointless repetition of chasing a game he no longer had any reason to play. Aside from a handful of guest appearances here and there (we fondly remember him on "Channel ORANGE"), André did the unthinkable: alpaca poncho on his shoulders, flute in his backpack, and off he went, wandering freely along the roads of the planet, in search of who-knows-what, as long as there's still a shred of humanity and intellectual honesty left out there.

In this context, then, the eighty-seven entirely instrumental minutes of his solo debut "New Blue Sun", cooked up together with percussionist and producer Carlos Niño, shouldn't really come across as all that jarring. But André hasn't completely lost his sense of humor: the titles of these new tracks provide just enough context to make the work more than a mere divertissement. The artist himself, or rather the meditating bard he's become, gets ahead of things right away: "I swear, I really wanted to make a 'rap' album but this is literally the way the wind blew me this time," he says by way of introduction, with no artifice whatsoever. There may have been an initial hint of hesitation in presenting himself this way, upending in one fell swoop all the rules of hip-hop, of making money, and of the masculinity associated with it, and yet, at forty-eight years old, seventeen years removed from his last work under the Outkast name, it's exactly this sense of total self-acceptance that makes the listen so distinctive. A long introduction of subtle organ filters and the timid contribution of percussion, then the entrance of the flute, with a simple, almost Mozartian ostinato that sounds bizarre, even comical, yet serene: André is a postmodern Papageno who lets the track unfold over a good twelve minutes, perhaps falling short of a properly structured composition in favor of improvisation, but maintaining a solid tonal balance, inspired by his listening to Terry Riley, Harold Budd and Laraaji. "New Blue Sun" is exactly this: ambient music pervaded by meditative new age overtones and flecks of progressive electronics, a slow, celestial listen that drifts into the background, yet is never kitsch nor dull, because it's infused with a natural curiosity even in its quietest moments.

Pay proper attention, in fact, and the subtleties become fascinating, as in the inscrutable minimalist passages of "The slang word p(*)ssy rolls off the tongue with far better ease than the proper word vagina. Do you agree?", which unfolds over a soft, enveloping chant-like drone, this time employing digital wind instruments. Unmissable is the lysergic, ayahuasca-fueled trip of track three, "That night in Hawaii when I turned into a panther and started making these low register purring tones I couldn't control… sh­t was wild": amid percussion and vibrant hi-hats, woodwinds, bamboo, and rain-like hisses, you get the impression of brushing up against certain Jon Hassell-like suggestions, yet André shows a mastery all his own in his use of instruments, as well as the art of breath he's learned through meditation. "BuyPoloDisorder's daugther wears a 3000® shirt embroidered", on the other hand, builds sinuous keyboard washes reminiscent of Vangelis and jittery electronic blips around intrusions of reed instruments with a battered mouthpiece, creating an underwater tension that resolves into white foam crashing against the rocks – it's the wittiest and most eventful improvisation of the bunch.

The two shorter tracks, the dead calm of "Ninety three 'til infinity and Beyoncé" and the silvery electronic landslides of "Ants to you, Gods to who?", pack together ten minutes of another movement whose delirious title – "Ghandi, Dalai Lama, your Lord Saviour & J.C. / Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy" – seems to probe the most uncomfortable corners of the human soul, searching for the divine within the diabolical – or vice versa.

Special mention goes to the odyssey of the grand finale – "Dreams once buried beneath the dungeon floor slowly sprout into undying gardens" – which lets the listen drift away into an eternally lush garden for almost eighteen minutes of digital dust, harps, metallic textures, and clarinet washes. The result is placid and rarefied, even when, around the fourteenth minute, the track opens up into gaseous, progressive-tinged bursts before slowly gliding toward silence.

Who knows where we'll find André after a release so at odds with his own past, even setting aside the fact that he's always been conspicuously different from his fellow rappers of the time. These days, one is tempted instead to think of fellow artist David Sylvian, who back in the day was likewise a sophisticated, immaculately dressed figure, and who then slowly abandoned the industry's carousel to approach his own art with an omnivorous gaze free of rules – it's no coincidence that one of his ambient collections was called "Approaching Silence": the art of quieting the noise and distractions of everyday life to find peace in the bare essence of oneself.

A mature man at peace with his place in the world, André 3000 is by now so free that he can overturn every expectation, including the genuinely radical one of doing away with his own voice in favor of curious wind instruments. "New Blue Sun" will no doubt leave many baffled, and plenty won't even consider it a proper album, and yet, without necessarily invoking the great masters of twentieth-century minimalism, its grooves are infused with a wandering yet ever-vital and deeply personal inspiration.

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20/11/2023