After a 30-year profession spent defying expectations, André 3000’s newest sleight of hand finds him shifting the keys like Bob James.
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Pictures
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Jamie McCarthy/Getty Pictures
Few music icons have constantly pulled magic — or unpredictable pivots — out the hat like André 3000.
After a 30-year profession spent defying expectations, his newest sleight of hand finds him shifting the keys like Bob James. 7 piano sketches, his newly launched shock EP, follows up the instrumental flip he took on 2023’s New Blue Solar with one other non-rap mission. This outing, he is traded in his bag of flutes for a much less moveable instrument. Which nonetheless did not cease him from strapping a grand piano mock-up to his again for the heaviest reveal at this yr’s Met Gala. His red-carpet arrival made for the peerlessly timed prelude to the mission’s launch Monday evening.
Not like the grand scale of his bespoke piano outfit — an elaborate collaboration between Burberry and André’s newly revamped males’s line, Benji Bixby — the 16-minute EP is an train in brevity. “It is saying loads for this little bitty piano album, which is type of hilarious to me,” André instructed GQ, drawing a distinction between the 2.
Even funnier is how a rapper who by no means practiced lyrical freestyling has now come to adore the artwork of improvised instrumentation. That love affair comes stripped clear to the bone on 7 piano sketches. He recorded many of the music on his iPhone greater than a decade in the past, “with [no] intention of presenting them in any formal solution to the general public,” as he wrote on Instagram. “They have been private, at house recordings. I might generally textual content them to my household and pals.” With seven songs of spare, unaccompanied piano — save for one tune, “i spend all day ready for the evening,” with a backing drum observe — 7 piano sketches feels just like the prequel to 2023’s New Blue Solar.
A few of his favourite composers and gamers embody Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner, Philip Glass, Stephen Sondheim, Joni Mitchell and Vince Guaraldi. However André’s strategy as an instrumentalist is totally different than the perfectionist tendencies he displayed on the mic. Right here, he is much less desirous about maximizing proficiency than he’s in capturing inspiration in a bottle.
“To conjure them up,” he wrote on Instagram detailing his tune making course of, “I unfold my fingers out on the keys and randomly however with goal transfer them round till I discover one thing that feels good or fascinating. If it feels actually good I’ll attempt to repeat it.” However you can too hear him attempting laborious to not repeat himself or fall into cliche melodies on “Blueberry Mansions” — the instant standout on the album and the one tune recorded in studio.
His preliminary title for the album, The Greatest Worst Rap Album In Historical past, is proof that, greater than anyone instrument, he is finest at taking part in with our expectations: “It is jokingly the worst rap album in historical past as a result of there are not any lyrics on it in any respect. It is the perfect as a result of it is the free-est emotionally and finest I’ve felt personally. It is the perfect as a result of it is like a palette cleanser for me.”
That is André, deconstructed. Nonetheless a magician at apply, hat in hand, with nothing up his sleeve however a behind-the-scenes peek at his ever-evolving course of. Who is aware of what he’ll conjure up subsequent?
