ATLANTA — André 3000 made waves early Tuesday morning with the announcement of a new album, the first album release from the iconic Outkast rapper in years.
He made the announcement on his official Instagram with a simple piece of album art and its title: "New Blue Sun."
The post indicated the album will be released on Friday, Nov. 17.
According to an interview he gave to NPR published Tuesday morning, it may not be the kind of album longtime fans might expect, however: It's all flute.
The NPR report by Atlanta-bred hip-hop writer Rodney Carmichael described the album as a "stunning 87-minute mind-bender, minimalist and experimental, tribal and transcendent."
The report also notes that there are eight songs on the album, with titles that play on André 3000's experimental artistic direction. One of those reportedly include: "I Swear, I Really Wanted To Make A 'Rap' Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time."
Asked about the album "taking us to other realms" with the emphasis on flute in this album, André 3000 told NPR he'd been playing flute for years and that it became a thing where fans would like to spot it, post it to Instagram, making it a "thing" to find him in the act in a "Where's Waldo" sense that he called "sucky."
He said he wanted to find a way to share his affinity for playing the flute in a serious format.
"So I just felt like I'd really like to play but it was really for me. I would just walk for hours and I'm a walker. I love to walk. So I would just walk and play for hours. I did that for years and it got to a point where, okay, I want to share. And so going into New Blue Sun, it was kind of like trying to figure out, well, how do I share it?" he said.
He added that the recording process "transcended me, it took me to different places to play," and that "everything you're hearing on New Blue Sun was spontaneous compositions. We made it up on the spot."