André Lauren Benjamin, better known by his stage name André 3000, has become synonymous with the legendary hip-hop duo Outkast alongside Big Boi, so much so that his greatness has become cemented in the genre. However, he has never actually released a solo project in the 17-year span that Outkast has been split up. Until now. 

On Nov. 17, André 3000 released his debut solo album, “New Blue Sun.” There was virtually no lead-up or promotion regarding the project prior to the album’s release from André 3000 or his label. It seemed nobody even knew about it; that is, until a week prior. NPR released an interview with the 48-year-old that finally confirmed its existence. It was also revealed in this interview that “New Blue Sun” would be a departure from the lyrically focused, thought-provoking rapping that he had been long associated with. In fact, this album would not have any lyrics at all. André 3000’s debut album was going to be an instrumental album centered around wind instruments.

Unsurprisingly, the wider world of music did not take kindly to this revelation. After all, hip-hop fans had been waiting patiently for his debut for 17 years, hoping for something beyond the limited features he had on tracks by other hip-hop and R&B artists. To be finally graced with an album after all that time — only for it to be such a far departure from what fans were hoping and expecting — felt like they had been scammed.

André 3000 seems to have his reasons for going in this direction, however. In an interview with GQ, he said that doing a project in this style “felt more real and authentic to [himself].” In effect, this seems to be a passion project for him, and that is evident without even listening to the album. Just have a look at the track names. The first track is titled, “I swear, I Really Wanted to Make A ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time.” Verbatim. The whole project has tracks named in a form that resembles philosophical pontifications, such as the seventh track, “Ants To You, Gods To Who?” This is very unconventional to say the least, especially for an album with no lyrics.

Aside from the philosophical musings we have for titles, what is there to make of the actual substance of this explorative project? Given the limited description of the sounds one should expect from this album, it wouldn’t be too wild of an assumption to make that it might sound like a greatly-prolonged flute solo during a high school band concert. Fortunately, you’d be pleasantly surprised, as the project doesn’t skimp out on other instruments. Each song clearly has some intentional production and thought put into it. The background instrumentals are smooth and the limited percussion sections in some tracks are crisp, although slightly bland.  

The album has a focus on the flute and similar woodwind instruments. As such, the album has a very clear ambient vibe to it, not entirely like the music that might play in the background of an open-world video game. If the best selling open-world video game of all time, “Minecraft,” released an update that added new music to its soundtrack, it would probably not sound far off from the songs you’ll find on this album. 

In that aforementioned GQ interview, André 3000 said that the recording of the album was “all improv and spontaneous,” and you can definitely get that sense as you listen to the project, with most tracks on here consisting of a lot of very simple yet intriguing note sequences and progressions. This adds onto the already atmospheric, adventurous semblance of the project, especially given the wide variety of wind instruments used in each track. However, it is definitely not exciting, and it ends up contributing to a major problem this album has. The track’s improvisational nature also lends the songs from sounding nondescript from each other, further contributing to the project’s lack of excitement.

Even though this album does not have any lyrical performances, the project boasts features through various instrumentals, though none of them are named on the tracklist. Aside from André 3000 and his producer, Carlos Niño, artists Diego Gaeta on tracks five through seven, Matthewdavid on track five, and Deantoni Parks on track three are featured. Their presence is not particularly notable, as would probably be expected on an album with no lyrics, but this more than likely speaks to the ambient nature of the album, and how their role is effectively to blend in seamlessly with the environment.

Sadly, this album has one glaring issue, and that is the length. The entire album is about 88 minutes long, which at face value isn’t that bad. There are definitely fantastic projects that have similar, if not longer, run times than this. However, where those projects differ from this specific project is that while a typical project of that length would likely spread the runtime over 20-30 songs, “New Blue Sun” occurs over only eight tracks. The average length of each track is therefore about 11 minutes, and the longest track on the album is 17 minutes. This unprecedented length within each track, coupled with the fact that the predominant sound results in an ambient nature with very limited variation from track to track makes this album a slog to sit through at times.

At the very least, André 3000 should be commended greatly for the fact that he made this album going completely against the precedents set before him because it felt genuine to himself, which is something that is often overlooked in modern music, whether it be for profit margins or fan approval. However, this does not lend itself to being flawless purely by that notion. Even with the pretty, almost angelic-sounding instrumentals, the lack of energy and variation between tracks makes it inferior to something like C418’s original “Minecraft” soundtrack, especially given the lengthy runtime of the project. Do not think that this album is not worth listening to, however, as it is still a commendable album, even though it will likely not be something you want to devote all of your attention to. It is definitely a fantastic project to have in the background while you work on that science project you’ve been procrastinating on since last month, but not so much when you’re sitting in your easy chair doing nothing.

This album receives a score of 6/10, and if André 3000 keeps making music of this variety, we can only expect it to improve from here.