André 3000 returns with his first solo record — but it's not a rap album

This year marks the 20th anniversary of OutKast's Grammy-winning album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, and the 25th anniversary of their acclaimed album Aquemini.

Plus, one half of the duo, André 3000, just released his long-awaited, if surprising, first solo album — an instrumental record titled New Blue Sun.

With lots to celebrate, OutKast and Southern hip-hop academic Regina Bradley and veteran music journalist David Dennis Jr. join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to share their thoughts on the new music, and on OutKast's legacy decades later.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

LISTEN | Today's episode on YouTube:

Regina: The running joke for, I guess we could say, decades now has been: we're not going to get an André rap album. You know what I'm saying? So, I'm not mad at it. I'm not mad at it at all. It was a sound bath.

Elamin: That's a good way to describe it. It's something that you're supposed to immerse yourself in. I don't know if you noticed, but the opening song reads kind of like an apology from André 3000 to all the rap fans. It is called I swear, I Really Wanted To Make A "Rap" Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time…. David, you've written a lot about OutKast over the decades. How are you feeling about what you just heard on this debut solo record from Three Stacks?

David: Well, I just wanna say first of all, there's a lot of rappers who do rap who should have a "No bars" disclaimer on their cover.

Elamin: That's a bar. That's a bar right there. Let's go.

David: Obviously, a lot of people want André 3000 to make a certain type of music. I tried to put this on at the gym this morning. The vibes were not there. But when I left the gym, I was playing it in the car and it's delightful. I'm not a traditionally-trained critic of flute music, so I can't rate it on the scale of great flute albums. But I will say that if you love OutKast, if you've come up loving OutKast for all of these years, I think that the people who truly, truly love this group and who truly, truly love André 3000 are happy that he's doing something that makes him happy.

Regina: You could have given it a five-flute rating.

David: Let's give it three and a half flutes and one wind chime.

LISTEN | I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a Rap Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time:

Elamin: Big Boi has given us three solo rap albums to date since Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. André, still at zero. Regina, what do we know about why André has been so hesitant to give us a solo rap album?

Regina: I mean, I think that's one of the reasons that André gets on a lot of OutKast fans' nerves, is he's so honest and straightforward with it. In 2014, he said that the reason that he didn't want to do the reunion tour was because he felt like he outgrew it…. That's one of the reasons that he started getting the jumpsuits, because he felt like he was selling out. And then recently, he was talking about how he's 48 years old and he was like, "What am I going to rap about? I do old people stuff." You know what I'm saying?

Elamin: He gave the example of a colonoscopy! It is worth noting throughout all of this that it's not like André's not rapping at all. He's actually rapped on quite a few albums from other artists over the past decade or so, including a song with Killer Mike that is currently being nominated for Rap Song of the Year at the 2024 Grammys. So, it's not like he's not rapping; he's just not rapping in a way where he wants to piece it together into an album.

David, it's been 20 years since OutKast gave us their last album. Since then Atlanta, the hip-hop South, have become the dominant place in rap. How are you feeling about the strength of OutKast's legacy in 2023?

David: OutKast's legacy is unimpeachable, man. I've always said that sometimes we put it in this space where it's confined to just comparing them to other hip-hop artists and who's the greatest hip-hop artist of all time. But if we're talking about the Stevie Wonders and the Princes and all these folks, I would put OutKast right there in terms of the greatness of music as a whole. I do not like the language of them "transcending" hip-hop because you can't transcend something that is as beautiful and artistic as hip-hop. But they are just unimpeachable in the way that they are a pillar for all this Southern stuff. They built on other folks; other folks built on them.

Regina and I are two writers. We ain't rapping, but you can't tell me that OutKast has not influenced us in the way that we go about everything that we do in very meaningful ways. You can talk about the best writers, best poets, best musicians and best food come out the South, right? And if you are of a certain age, OutKast influenced you in all of those parts of life, so that makes them sort of unimpeachable.

Elamin: Regina, I'm going to give you the last word in a minute, but I just want to say, I was talking to one of my cousins about Lil Yachty, specifically about the song Poland by Yachty, because it's this strange little beautiful, haunting cry. I don't know what he's talking about in that song. He took a walk to Poland? Love that song. And he was like, "Man, I've never heard anything like this before." I'm like, "What if I introduce you to some OutKast songs? I would like to introduce you to how we got here." And I guess when I talk about the legacy, one of my questions is: do the young people walk by the OutKast statue and salute, or do they go, "No, I don't want to talk about this old music, old man." How do we think about that legacy in 2023?

Regina: I know they better not pass me and be like, "I don't want to listen to this old music." … But I have to agree with David. I think that their legacy is unimpeachable, but I think that they could have a renaissance, if you will, because of TikTok. TikTok is this site of discovery for younger generations, right? I can definitely see them going down that Dungeon Family hole, because there's so much good music. So I think that legacy is evolving in the same way.

The last thing I've got to say about it is, if we go back to what André said — The South got something to say — I don't think it's about the artists anymore. I think now it's at the point where we need to document and show younger generations there was this moment in time where you had these multiple big bang moments in music, and a lot of those big bangs were coming out of the South at this particular time. So, I guess if social media is not going anywhere, use social media as a teaching tool and chop it up in ways that folks will be more willing to understand why OutKast is the greatest group of all time.

Elamin: Oof, the greatest group of all time?

Regina: I said what I said. I don't care.

Elamin: And I should've prepared for it, because I knew exactly who I was asking.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ty Callender.