André 3000 Talks His New Album and Life After Outkast | GQ

like I like seasoned seasoned food like I hate bland food okay so I season my clothes a lot one of my homies told me like after I finished he and I played it for him he said man if you put that out man your career is over [Music] that's like one of the the coolest things about the recording like I'm actually listening to myself be a baby at something you know be a baby at this new machine that I've never [Music] touched feels like 80s doctor's office I think it's Cozier than that psychiatrist office psychiatrist office there we [Music] go that's amazing man a thank you man what's up man what's up bring it in bring it in I like the shirt oh thank you thank you very much yeah yeah you know stra yeah just trying to be like you it's strip time be like you get your stripes yeah yeah we should make it clear that you actually use this lrat yeah yeah this is uh lerat uh not too far from my house how'd you end up out here I was making a move from from New York and it was really supposed to be like a like a six-month kind of you know reset you know come to California get some sign hey hey what is that I got it from a Ramsey's the Great great museum in San Fran we went to this thing um and I bought this just as and now he's just the the laundry guardi he hangs out like I sit him in the in the the wi seal of my car like me and my son kind of like and I think seven may have put like just a plain rubber duck and then when I saw this one I was like yeah we going beautiful we going to freak it like that's the Egyptian so like your son a little bit with you too which is beautiful I think people would be surprised to know that you go to a laundry mat to do your laundry yeah but but only for that kind of convenience thing and is fun for me because it's it gives me a chance to kind of uh to be out in the world and like when I'm putting clothes in the dryer I usually go out in the alley and practice you know I play my instrument out in the alley and it's just something to do to get out in the sun a little bit what is important about being out in the worlds uh meeting people like I met this old lady here um she was from Vienna I had my bass clarinet at the time and I was kind of playing and she says uh the your music the music that that you're plan it reminds me of my old country we sparked up like a real cool friendship and she was like if you come here next Saturday I'll bring you all of my old record collection of classical music from Vienna and she told me a time to meet her but unfortunately I was late and so when I came I she wasn't around so I hadn't seen her so I'm hoping she's still alive you know do people clock that it's you when you're here no she she didn't know who I was it's kind of like some people may recognize and like oh man that's cool but it's not like crazy like I kind of like what my life is where I can where I can come and do this you know what I mean like a lot of my contemporaries like I kind of feel bad for them you know because we got children and like sometimes like some of these people can't even go out without having Paparazzi follow them and it's like it's not that's that's a whack that's a whack ass life man like I kind of like some normaly even though it's not normal but I came from that like I used to hang out at you know the lrat like when we didn't have a watch wash and dry at at our house my mom worked at the beauty salon so it's like I'm in these places social kind of situation you know yeah when you say normaly what do you mean by that walk with your family and not have people follow you and chase you and you can't take your kid to the park and play because people will follow was your life ever like that at certain times uh I think maybe at the height of at the height of outcast um over like years of like letting it simmer a little bit and I'm older now so a lot of people they see me like you look like him but nah nah that ain't 3,000 so it's like it's funny cuz it's like when you're 19 you're probably working towards like anything but normal you know you're working towards like let's be successful let's let's let's see where this can go and then you spend the back end of it trying to work your way back to the there life you want what you want to you don't want it me and big boy used to literally pray every night but Lord really you really we just want to be good rappers that's that was our prayer it was called like a rapper's prayer like Lord we really just want to be good rappers and we did that and it's kind of like now we're seeing that it's happened I love that it's happened like I don't regret any of that but it's kind of like now that I'm at a certain level I miss certain things about normaly and like I'm an only child so I've always kind of been to myself anyway I kind of like my solitary kind of chill life and I I think you do have a choice but you can still live the other way if you wanted to you are you ever like tempted to like that's the that's the problem the balance like I do have an urge because I want to create things like I'm I'm happiest when I'm creating things and I was talking to my manager and publist I had to really ask myself do you want to possibly be famous again like do you want to turn it up again and I was like uh well I'll just put the record out and just don't do any press for it or anything like that but then it's kind of a disservice to the music because I want people to like check it out I want people to hear it I had to find some balance we've been a little koi you have a whole flute album now uh I wouldn't call it a flute album it's an album but I am playing wind instruments uh sometimes it's native flutes uh sometimes it's digital wind instruments which I actually discovered right before we started recording the album some of the song what you're hearing you're hearing me go through patches on the instrument and uh you hear me figuring the instrument out so it's new which I thought was really cool uh to me that's like one of the the coolest things about the recording like I'm actually listening to myself be a baby at something you know be a baby at this new machine that I've never touched a document of this exists it has a name yes new blue Sun new blue sun is the album many people will ask why it would wi album I ask myself why anything like why why did we record these albums before in my career like it's just kind of those are the things that came you know um I would say it's probably this felt more real and authentic to me like cuz I don't stop trying things like I always try you know recordings and I try vocal things uh I even try to jot down ideas and lyrics here and there but none of that just none of that excited me you know it always it it kind of felt like like I'm trying to do a thing you know what I mean and I don't like when I'm trying to do a thing it just felt inauthentic and this felt like the realest I could be at the time people who like pay close attention know that you're you're creating all the time this this the first thing though that actually is making out in the world I've actually played some when things that I've put out in the world that I call myself another name under different artists that are out there that you know I've just kind of testing it out in a way wait so you have Anonymous wind recordings out there already Yes okay yes from known artists really and and they've been cool about keeping it secret yeah I wasn't sure how to present the win thing because I would just be on the street and play cuz I I play like in nature a lot I just play hiking walking um in the city wherever and what started to happen was people started kind of like filming me on the cell phones and posting it and making beats out of it which is cool to me but um yeah I was trying to find a way how can I share my love for discovering this wind instrument with more people like yeah where it's just not this kind of where's wo there's this dude planing kind of thing so uh and approaching I knew I wanted to do a wind-based album but I didn't really know what I wanted to sound like I had influences I had ideas and I what were the influences uh influences ranging from cold train to Philip Glass to uh Steve Reich it's a very intimate record I've heard it it's like getting a very like luxurious and expensive but very like tender mental massage nice I'll take it I describe it as just like pure like breathing you know and and living in the the way it was recorded it was all improv and spontaneous so we were living it what you hear on the record is how we heard it as we were doing it it wasn't planned it wasn't like hey we going to we're going to do this we're going to do these course and we're going to we only talked about feeling you know are you apprehensive very very very apprehensive do you feel like that played into decisions you made about Outcast too I think uh just in general when it came to figuring out what we would do creatively and where where my Creative Juice is coming from within Outcast like there there was a certain point where I just didn't know where else to go you know I didn't like even now like people think oh man he's just sitting sitting on wraps or like he's just holding or holding these WS hostage like I ain't got no RS like that like it's it's it actually feels sometimes it feels inauthentic for me to rap because I I don't have anything to talk about in that way like I'm 40 8 years old and not not to say that age is a thing that dictates what you rap about but in a in a way it does and like the things that happened in my life like what do you talk like I got to go get a colon oopy like what do you like what do you rap about you know what I mean like my eyesight my eyesight is going bad like but you're not you're not just any rapper like you're a top five top you know to many people to me it's like you're basically being like I have a very beautiful sports car in the garage but I choose ever to to drive it you know which is which is your talent talent is one thing but honestly it's I think timing and momentum is more important than talent and the energy of it like Talent it's a lot of people with talent and we seeing that now like there's so many dope people on the internet like that are just raw but it's your timing it's what you're talking about it's if you're catching the Zeitgeist of what's happening in in the world and like my goal is I want to connect I'm not talking about nothing that I can't connect with and it have you tried it's no it's no use yeah I try all the time like I'm open to producers now like the young producers and I get Beats all the time like and people send me songs like to get on remixes and stuff like that but I don't be knowing what to talk about most of the time you know do you think that's about expectations or or or lack of self-belief like where do you think that comes from like I think you're your best and worst critic and I only work on feeling feeling is my only barometer of what I'm doing like I don't feel like I'm the best rapper I don't feel like I'm the best producer I don't feel like I'm the best singer actor none of that it's just for me my gauge is feeling and that's always been that way even with an outcast like if it felt right I ain't care what other people thought if it felt right it was like I ain't going to argue with what it feel like and if it don't feel right to me which it hasn't in a while like when it comes to rapping or vocal you know type of music I don't do it the song is more important than the music is more important I was looking at the song titles I wanted to ask you about a few yeah for sure the first song is called I swear I really wanted to make a rap album rap and quotation marks but this is literally the way the wind blew me this time in my mind I would love to make a rap album like I would love to make a rap album but this is what came at this time and it felt authentic one of the things that's so great about you as a rapper is the directness and and the way that you just you would talk about your life so when you said yesterday I don't know what to talk about now I was like how is that how's that possible I was once in the studio with a with an artist a younger artist uh Tyler Creator uh and we were talking about rapping as you're old and I I was kind of telling Tyler I was like man I just don't know what like I'd rather write a book or something at this point like I don't know like you got to do it and I was like why he was like because it shows us what we can do when we get to that age but to make it into a entertaining song to where it's just just not self-serving or it's not just like there's a part of entertaining someone else too I know I joked about yeah having to go get a colonoscopy and all this kind of stuff and that's a real thing in my life but to make that into a song or why not like yeah of course but I got to make it into a song that feels good as a song but your track record as making people feel good through song is track record is one thing the right now is a whole another I can't put anything else out in the world if I'm not excited about it cuz how can I expect you to be excited about it how can I expect you to think oh this is raw a this is fresh I don't feel that way like what's that uh that saying with that drug addict say they say well the longer I'm out of it the better chances I have of staying out of it so that's not what America wants to hear I no I'm staying but it it feels that way like as I keep going like it's like you keep slowing down too like people don't understand there's a physicalness to to rapping I always say it's like it's like being a boxer like you got to think it's think the genre is big enough to Encompass all of that look at the the greatest boxers now what do they do they do exhibition fights every now and then but they not stepping in the rain ring you know what I mean what if rapping wasn't boxing what if it was but it is though that's what I'm saying it is partly physical partly mental when boxers when they about to fight they have to train so if I were to make a rap album the best thing I could probably do is just be around rappers you know what I mean that's not part of your life right now really yeah it's not even like I don't even like going to the studio and just hanging out with smoking all day you know I just I just it's got to be weird to have all that energy directed toward you people coming up to you on the street or whatever and be like do this do this do this and you're like I'm not going do it I wish I could answer them man that's a lot of cosmic pressur like being brought to bear on you it is it is and then that's to that point that that title the first song yeah I'm kind of addressing it in a way um yeah I think so yeah like for me like washing is kind of like cooking like like I like season seasoned food like I hate bland food okay so I season my clothes a lot we're in our uniform era is that right yeah I guess you definitely can call it a uniform it's easy for me like it's kind of like even when I when I look around now and I look at kind of what's happening in the world like everybody turned up in the late '90s and 2000s our contemporaries were looking at us crazy like who are y'all like y'all are from another planet now the planet is here you know like all all the kids are turned up you know like which is beautiful I just love this work Weare kind of stripes and these overalls they kind of they're very comfortable I call them like a dope baby clothes you just feel like really comfortable and snug and like you have places to put your hands this is yours these are yeah what is the brand called from now on they will have no choice but to call us the ants this is a work Weare brand for sure and like when you look at ants it's like they're always like working I'm at the stage where I'm loving to do things with my hand hands yeah you know and things that I can do when I'm 75 years old or when I'm 80 years old and the outfit reflects that yeah I mean like I don't think about clothing like I'm I'm at work like I'm actually drawing or painting in these I still love it that like the young kids they'll come up like oh man your fit is fresh like oh okay thank you man do you feel like the uniform is a reminder to your self about the differences between now and say like the year 2000 it's actually the opposite it's not a reminder at all it's a forgetting I don't have time to think about clothing some people like go into fashion fashion like I want to be free and like do all these things there's certain freedom in that too but there's also a freedom and not having to think about it at all what do you do while you wait usually when you're here uh I usually go in the alley and uh I play I don't mean to be forward or ask for the art for free but could we do that I'm at a point now like if somebody in the street was would to were to ask me like man could you rap like could you say something it feel weird like like I have to like get my mind like you have to get in rap mind or rap mode but people ask me hey can you play I like yeah let's go yeah let's play Let's go yeah let's go yeah [Music] that's amazing man ah thank you I'm just kind of feeling what's happening at the time so I'm just kind of making it up as it as it go like even the the new album was completely uh improved and made up just a discovery path every time so you never know what patterns you will play you never know what me Melodies you're going to play you on the tight rope at that point so it's like you got to do something it's very interesting that I've never been a rap freestyler I just think too much to Freestyle you know but this is somehow accessing like a different part of the brain yeah I'm not thinking at all listening more than anything like listening and responding so when I started playing it was kind of a thing like if you didn't know of my history if you didn't know of album sales if you didn't know of Records you know accolades anything like I I was getting real responses from people that didn't like actually people would come up and give me money like yeah are you aware of the clips of you playing your flute various places became aware of it and it kind of made me more self-conscious because it became kind of like a game I I I remember I was in Philadelphia and someone came up and they was like you know it's like a game now like an actual person they were like you know you know we try to spot you and he told me I was like Ah that's kind of it's kind of weird now you know cuz at first it was kind of like I would just walk for miles and miles and play and just kind of duck off in places but now it's like it's become a thing being famous is just people don't want to say it like it is a great blessing like I'm I'm actually blessed to be able to create in front of people and get ideas off that's the biggest blessing out of being famous but being famous really sucks man like it's so unhuman like I can't remember his name but there was this classical pianist that said it's actually unnat unnatural and actually detrimental to a human to have that much admiration because it actually changes the way you think it changes the way you move you know like there's 100 people on the planet Earth who were like as famous as you at one point you know like the experience that you've had and know very few people know you're like an astronaut in that sense you know I'm coming to grips with it I think because I'm older now like I really see it as I'm just being used for something you know what I mean and I can just I'm happy that I'm being used in a greater scheme like I kind of have looked at my whole career and looked at where I am now and I kind of feel like I'm a catalyst kind of artist where I'll do a thing that I naturally do and then you know people see it and then the reaction of that spawns other things to happen you know what I mean so I'm always watching well how am I how am I being used like you know yeah what's happening like what's what's going on right now you know and you can't be mad at that and then I want to ask about one more the last song Dreams once buried beneath the dungeon floor slowly Sprout into undying Gardens yeah yeah that uh that song which is the last song on the album Just for information that is actually the first song that we recorded as as as a a group we're creeping along and filling it out and it just felt like this Enchanted kind of Garden at first and so the title is kind of referencing that Enchanted Garden thing but it's also like I wanted to kind of like go back to the very beginning so I wanted to like pinpoint the dungeon the dungeon where I'm from you know with myself Outcast Goody Mob organized noise and we started in Rico Wade's basement and it was dirt like it was actually it wasn't a floor it was actually a crawl space where the musical equipment was and I just felt like um there was a continuation like I always wanted to not it's not a separate thing it's a continuation from where we started you know so everything kind of goes back to the dungeon when you look back at it yeah we were kids and you know we were different in high school but even you know choosing the name Outcast it was like okay you kind of don't you just don't fit in really and I've really felt that way even outside of music just kind of in my life like I don't really feel like I belong to any sect I don't feel like I belong to the young rap crew I don't feel like I belong to the Aged adults um yeah I've just never yeah I just don't feel like you fit in anywhere so you just kind of got to take that and just it is what it is you know I watched the clip of you guys being booed at the source Awards this morning you look so young oh yeah yeah we were we were youngans man are those fun memories when you look back on them at that time oh yeah man they like those times were the best times ever man like and you wish you could get them back like you wish you can all go back and sleep on the dungeon sleep at on the floow in the dungeon you know time moves on and Things Grow things change families come new generations come uh Generations after you come even musically you know know even looking at the landscape of music now like I'm so happy and blessed that I'm still alive to be able to see like a lineage you know to see it like to be clear yeah to I I see it and I hear it because a lot of these guys actually like reach out and like we we we talk and I think uh lineage is important in any art form in anything because I think you do a disservice if you don't tell people where things came from when I'm making music I always feel like oh I wonder what uh what George n would think or I wonder if if Jimmy was here what would he think you know or I wonder what would Prince think you're only as good as the people before you yeah it's just true because those are your building blocks and I don't care who you are and it will always be that way and it will just keep going and that's it's it's it's gratifying to know that your life has had meaning for someone or a group of people and for such a long time I mean like I was saying I see how young you are in that clip I said like God these guys were so successful so young you know I do you think about that like did that what kind of effect did that have on you it was a blessing to be successful that young like I think our career is kind of interesting because uh since our very first album we've gone platinum and just kept Rising like so next album was double next three next four so it kept it just kept Rising I think you're 13x today I heard yeah I recently heard that which is so crazy so so so cra bestelling rap album of all time it's something in it cuz I'm always kind of trying to figure out what's the the bad in I don't know I'm just a negator we haven't taken a fall you know what I mean and I think sometimes you build character or you build something by failure idow may have been our slip you know you you never know the only thing you can do is be honest about what you're doing at the time because what you don't want to happen you don't want to fall or fail when you were trying to mimic something or trying to appease someone else is that what keeps you away from Outcast now and I think there's a certain chemistry that uh that me and big boy have I think people don't understand that chemistry changes Outcast was a a true chemistry the elements we had were not supposed to go together a lot of times you know but it's something that and I think they call it Rocket Fuel like when you have these kind of forces that may be opposing but they're go going for the same goal but they kind of get this this kind of reaction to each other and it makes magic but as as like people like me and big boy like like we still tough you know like it didn't hadn't changed it it'll always be that way because we were we were friends first like we weren put into a group together anything so we'll always have that but plenty of people would get especially since I think at least for years the understanding was that he would have kept going if you would have oh no big man big boy is big boy he is on it like he's he's back tomorrow yeah he is the biggest cheerleader like for Outcast big boys oh man we the greatest you know he's he's he's the Muhammad Ali kind of like the love between you guys is very real cuz I think that that energy those different goals would have split other people up not just as a group but as like two human beings I do know that I'm not the controller big boy is not the controller of any of this we couldn't have planned where we are you know so we can't plan an ending you guys did reunite one time to play Show 2014 yes I haven't been on stage in damn near 15 20 years so it's like it was odd for me and actually right before the show you see Paul McCartney walk and go to the left side of the stage and then Prince walks to the right side of the stage I'm like what the man and you know there's new technologies like earbuds and like I never used earbuds in my life like we were always just in front of the monitors are listening to the speakers so if you watching the Coachella show like I got people in my ear talking and and I'm it's like what the hell is going on so halfway through the show I was already checked out like I was already in my bed at home so I was just trying to get through it and so um yeah the show happens and it was a bomb night it was horrible for in my eyes it was horrible the very next morning I get a call from Prince which I don't know him like that I don't know how he got my number I I I I do not know and first thing he says is you know what your problem is you don't realize how big y'all are and then he was like you got to remind people who you are and from that point on like it's like okay is it weird to live like where knowing that if you wanted to next week you could be on stage in front of 60,000 people it's only weird in like the scale of of thinking about that you know even when we did the outcast 20 we opened up for Rolling Stones on one of the dates and i' never seen that many people in my life was there like a mental adjustment to be like Oh I'm I'm by myself again I'm I mean there's been so many times in my mind where I I thought I was done yeah so it wasn't even like a struggle it wasn't like oh what am I going to do now like yeah there are time even still now like doing all of this like I remember a couple weeks ago talking to my manager and Publishers I was like I really had to ask myself do I want to be just out there again like to do the run to do the pr to like and I I really had to ask myself and I honestly don't I don't want to like I really enjoy my life I I like being able to do to do what I want as a civilian you know uh when not just walking in the world but at the same time I want to promote the music so I'm only doing it to promote the music like I'm not this ain't no like no flex and forgive me if this is like not something that's fun or comfortable to talk about cuz we don't have to but it's like you've talked in the past about actually having some amount of real social anxiety yeah it's true and you and you and it never goes away it's like it's not like a a cure all kind of thing um it's just it just becomes a part of life and you just have to kind of like take a deep breath smile a little bit and just get through it for tomorrow that's the best I can I can say you know do you think that's something that de and reaction of fame or something you always had for sure for sure I think that may have been a trigger like like a traumatic kind of thing because it's really unnatural to have that much attention as a human you know or to have that much expectation as a human I had to adjust people filming you all the time or just like coming up to you and like and that was so weird to me like very very we weird to me and I didn't like it it made me not want to play at all it made me not want to come out at at all one thing a therapist told me he was like well son the thing that makes your art what it is is the thing that you don't like either so it's like what am I going to do what are you going to do it's not like I can change it yeah just kind of rock with it do you feel like something like the new record is like an attempt to just change the terms of the conversation in a way I will say it's the most honest thing that I could do at the moment and I feel really good about it and one thing that I noticed listening back at the album is it's kind of a reset for a reintroduction of a new volume I'm not trying to compete with people on the radio like most records that come out when you master them you master them to the loudest that they can go you know and I was having a conversation with the engineer and a lot of his engineer buddies they were saying we've realized as Engineers that as humans we've gotten as loud as we can get in human history when you think about that we can't get any louder as an engineer people send you files a lot of times they look like these thick bars mhm solid bars when music look used to look like that sure dynamic dynamic and so on the record there's certain kind of suggested listening you know tactics like we would say you know listen at a low to mid volume you know CU these are not bangers when you listen to music now do you hear your influence yeah where do you hear most uh certain artists uh I see it visually um I see it uh more more in spirit and people pushing things and trying trying things and I love I love the the spirit like I think I'm happy that people caught on on the spirit part like you see Tyler and them you see like Teo touchdown and those guys like you're like what the coolest thing is it's not like a sunning it's not like a copy it's the next it's a lineage yeah it's a lineage like these people got their own thing like do you allow yourself to picture how people might react to this record when it's out in the world yeah I do what do you picture I have a lot of different outcomes and it depends on different people like you may get someone that cries you may get someone that immediately starts to do yoga then you got the homie that be like y'all can to put some beats on that like my friends don't always like my music which is hilarious to me like one of my homies told me like after I finish heyi and I played it for him uh he said he said man if you put that out man your career is over and in my mind I'm like damn but I like this though like do you have any other plans around it in terms of will you tour or will you oh yeah oh man I'm glad you asked that so the cool thing about how we recorded it making up the sound like everything that y'all are hearing we made it up at at that point and so the live performances will be that again so we get to actually go out and do it live and like I actually had to go back and listen and relearn some of the melody that I played but it'll always be a completely new performance every time have you thought much about just being on stage again yes I have and it's terrifying it is terrifying it's a very new experience for me like which is totally different from getting on stage and rapping some songs there's more involved in what I have to do now than rapping songs that I've written that's kind of like muscle memory and Just Energy and you're able to hide some of the nervousness through your energy here it's all in your face you're on a tight rope the whole time like I can't hide behind a beat that you already know or hide behind lyrics that you already are into it is what it is it's fun to do it like when I'm when I'm actually playing it's fun it's [Music] fun

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Id: lDGmSCXoSRs

Length: 33min 58sec (2038 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 16 2023