The gig that made fans give up on André 3000
When André 3000 and Big Boi reformed OutKast in 2014, it sent shockwaves all over the world. For some context, the prospect of a reunion was the hip-hop equivalent of Roger Waters and David Gilmour patching things up to go on tour with Pink Floyd.
There is one major difference, though. The issue with the Pink Floyd main men is that if they spend a minute in the same room together, they’ll kill and eat each other. However, André 3000 and Big Boi have maintained that they still love and respect each other, and there’s no reason to believe they’re lying. No, the shock of OutKast getting back together came from a very different source. It was a sign that maybe, just maybe, the least likely thing in hip-hop was finally happening.
André 3000 was finally giving his fans exactly what they wanted – that’s always been the dichotomy of Dre, it’s the reason that the band came to an end. While Big Boi was always more of a traditional rapper, André 3000 wasn’t and never had any desire to be.
He was an artist and wanted to push the boat out as far as it would go. Why make hip-hop bangers when you could make Chitlin circuit-era blues music like on Idlewild? Or jump on a track with James Murphy and Gorillaz? Or immerse himself more in acting?
Then, the band got back together. As a result, many people wondered whether André 3000 was finally going to start giving people what they wanted, and what had fuelled him to accept the offer.
However, people should have known something was up by the tour itself because, within days of the shows beginning, anyone who looked twice at him could see he had well and truly checked out of the standard rap game.
Then came everything that happened next. 17-minute ambient jazz tracks released on Soundcloud. More acting. Collaborating with Kanye West and then, arguably, the most infamous move of them all, the flute album New Blue Sun. Even André himself seemed to know just how much he was pushing it with this one, why else would he title its first single ‘I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time’?
Next came the tour supporting the album. Dre seemed smart about this, mainly playing venues that were more suited to ambient jazz-flute, like the Jazz Cafe in London, except those shows in Camden were leading up to a prime slot at the All Points East Festival in Victoria Park. Surely, he would put the flute down for this one? Surely, he’d worked out all his jazz gremlins earlier in the week and could bear to dust off ‘BOB’ or ‘ATLiens’ for old times’ sake?
André 3000 improvised on his flute for 45 minutes. Pausing occasionally to bark incoherently into the mic. People were incensed and left his set in droves. However, all those people who whined online couldn’t have known all that much about André 3000. You don’t need to look all that deep at his history to know that this is a man who can do basically anything. He’s made some of the best hip-hop of all time. He can do pop, rock, soul, funk, jazz, and blues, then combine all of them into something genuinely new.
The one thing he won’t do, however, is what anyone wants him to do.