Andre 3000

When it comes to truth in advertising, few albums this year are going to top Lil Jon’s just-released Total Meditation. Not remotely hip hop, the music is instead a soothing sonic bath akin to what one would hear in a massage-therapy room at a spa. As those tracks wash over you, the rapper, producer and home-improvement guru offers self-help tips (“anxiety can be a big problem for many people. When you meditate on a regular basis,  the health benefits continue to increase”) and specific suggestions on how to meditate:…

The June weekend lineup also includes Victoria Monét, Jill Scott, Nas, Gunna, and a celebration of New Orleans with Trombone Shorty The Roots have announced the lineup for their 2024 Roots Picnic. Philly fans will have their chance to see André 3000 bring his flute project New Blue Sun to the stage for a live performance. But it’s Lil Wayne who is tapped to headline the June festival. He’ll be backed by the Roots for a set of his hits and also pay tribute to the music of his hometown of New…

Andre 3000 reveals he auditioned for — but didn’t get — Ludacris’ role in the Fast and Furious series in a bonus interview from the rapper/flutist’s recent appearance on The Late Show. Taking the soul-bearing “Colbert Questionert” back in January, the late-night host asked the OutKast legend what his favorite action movie was; Andre 3000 couldn’t think of one, so Colbert asked him a follow-up question about why he hasn’t yet appeared in any of the all-star Fast and Furious movies.…

At 48, Killer Mike won three rap Grammys on Sunday and told the audience: “You cannot tell me you get too old. You cannot tell me it’s too late.” Mike won best rap album for Michael, while his song “Scientists and Engineers” won best rap performance and best rap song. On Twitter, the Recording Academy accidentally announced that Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s “Barbie World” won best rap song, though it went to Michael‘s track, which features Andre 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane. “For all the…

I walked into Brooklyn’s Crown Hill Theatre wondering what kind of set to expect at the first stop of André 3000’s New Blue Sun tour. I had never been to the Crown Heights venue; I didn’t know whether he would be on a bare stage or have chairs arranged in a big circle that he’d play in the middle of. How would he split the difference between being an artist performing for paying fans and being the far-removed, flute-carrying maverick who does what he wants? When I walked in, I saw a dark stage with four light…

The performance was nearly as long as the song title itself, with the rapper performing the song on the flute for nearly 10 minutes André 3000 brought his latest studio album, New Blue Sun, to the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The performance was nearly as long as the song itself as the musician performed “That Night In Hawaii When I Turned Into A Panther And Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control … Sh*t Was Wild” on the flute for nearly 10 minutes.…

OutKast rapper also weighs in on his wake-up time, his go-to music, his love of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car," and more Andre 3000 sits down with Questlove for a wide-ranging chat about a variety of topics — including the rapper’s standout instrumental LP New Blue Sun — in the latest episode of the Roots drummer’s Questlove Supreme podcast. Over the hour-long interview — which Questlove called “two friends, two colleagues having a conversation with each other” — Andre 3000 is asked questions like…

It doesn’t seem that long ago that Game sniped at Jay-Z with the line: “You 38 and still rappin’? Ugh!” from his 2006 track “It’s Okay (One Blood).” Yet some of this era’s biggest rap heroes are nearing — and above — forty. A “Tale Of The Tape” scene in the music video for Drake and J. Cole’s recent collaboration “First Person Shooter” displayed them at 37 and 38 years old, respectively. There was a time when rappers wouldn’t be so forthcoming about pushing 40, but rap’s “too old” stigma has largely dissipated as…

Last week, the news that André 3000 would be releasing an album of instrumental flute jams was greeted with enough head-scratching to draw blood. But don’t tell that to Jake Fridkis, who plays principal flute with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. If you’ve heard DJ Khaled and Drake’s “No Secret” or Roddy Rich and Ty Dolla Sign’s “llf,” among others, you’ve heard his instrument, which was woven into the fabric of those tracks. “It’s now hit the point where people are saying, ‘Flute is the new instrument in rap,’”…

There have been hundreds upon hundreds of ambient music albums released this year, but there’s only one released by an elite-tier rapper with a 13-times-Platinum record under his overalls. In the 16 years since the tectonic-shifting Outkast went on hiatus, fans of the duo’s André 3000 have been clamoring for the superstar to deliver something more than the occasional knockout guest verse. Instead, he’s been following his arrow as a nomadic, bohemian troubadour playing his flute in airports, coffee shops, sidewalks and…