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Since the last Outkast album, in 2006, rumours have circulated occasionally about studio sessions with big-name producers. You cannot ignore the messianic expectations that accompany an André solo record. It’s the most honest thing I can be doing.” It’s not like I won’t rap ever again, but this naturally blew this way and felt worthy to share. “I’m always interested to see where I am going. “Even when I first started rapping, I didn’t necessarily think I’d end up producing or doing The Love Below,” he continues, with none of the affectation you might expect from an artist who has won seven Grammys (six with Outkast) and sold 20m records. Retaining the sartorial flair of the man who co-wrote So Fresh, So Clean, he is immaculately accessorised in round caramel glasses, turquoise shell necklaces and a thick gold bracelet think Dizzy Gillespie if he were into surfing and abstract expressionism. A navy-blue beanie covers a greying tuft of hair. André is wearing pinstripe painter’s overalls that hang loosely over a camouflage shirt. “As a kid, I drew and painted and thought that I’d go to art school,” he says. I’d love to shut motherfuckers up.” Instead, New Blue Sun captures the reawakening of a beatific spirit, living up to the mantra of not worrying about what anyone else thinks, laid out by André 25 years ago on the Outkast track Liberation: “Now that’s liberation and, baby, I want it.” “I really wanted to make a rap album, because in a way you really do want to please your fans. I’m just so happy to share it,” André says, with disarming sincerity. 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. It is one of the most radical evolutions in pop history. “There was something softer and smoother about the tone of woodwinds,” he says. At first, he took up the saxophone, but soon switched to Coltrane’s first instrument, the bass clarinet, which led to the flute. André, on digital woodwind (“this weird wind-synth thing”), is accompanied by some of Los Angeles’ best jazz and avant garde musicians: Carlos Niño, Nate Mercereau, Surya Botofasina, Matthewdavid, VCR and more.Īndré’s jazz odyssey began with John Coltrane. His half‑decade quest to master the flute has led to the eight tracks that comprise New Blue Sun, culled from dozens of sessions recorded at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio. He would be in on the joke, except that it isn’t one. The Atlanta native, born André Benjamin, is aware that it looks a little weird. ‘I’m just trying to find a way to keep going.’ Photograph: Kai Regan The lunchtime crowd at the Michelin-recommended restaurant where he sits down is delighted.

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Two professional camera operators are shooting the scene for a documentary about the creation of his long-awaited debut solo album, New Blue Sun, an instrumental epic of celestial new age and meditative ambient music. Here, on a Friday afternoon in late October, this mystic apparition is tooting his cedarwood Mayan instrument among the organic cafes and haute couture boutiques. You are most likely to spot André in Venice, California, where this reclusive rap great resides when he is on the west coast.

He has also popped up in coffee shops, the streets of Tokyo and airports worldwide. It’s like glimpsing Pan, the Greek god of the wild, jamming in solitary reverie at an outdoor yoga class in Philadelphia. The circumstances tend to fit a pattern: someone stealthily films the Outkast legend playing a wooden double flute in public, which triggers a social media frenzy. For the past four years, André 3000 sightings have practically become a thing of folklore.

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