It’s hard to swallow that the last project by Outkast was over five years ago with Idlewild. It didn’t do as well as they’d hoped but Andre3000 and Big Boi have never been too concerned with what the critics say. They are probably the greatest, groundbreaking and most creative hip hop duo in history – nevermind the fact that their solo work is also highly revered – and don’t even front on Andre’s acting skills.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine in the USA, Andre alluded to the fact that there’s never ever a real solid plan. “Things are kind of up in the air with me, and some days, I feel like yeah, I’ll do it,” he said. “Some days, I feel like, I don’t. I don’t know the future of music right now. I have no idea what I do. I honestly don’t. I record and I write ideas. I think I’ll always do that, for some reason. But I don’t know if it will go to another artist or will it be my stuff or will it go to some movie? I don’t know. I just kind of keep creating and hopefully, it’ll fall into a slot.”
Never one to put pressure on himself to always be in the spotlight or drop consistently, Andre 3K told the magazine how sad he gets when people judge him. “I miss creating all the time and I miss going with blinders on and not thinking about anything,” he said. “It’s such a sad thing because now, people judge everything that I do. Because I don’t do it much, they analyze every word and before, you could’ve had a shitty verse and people just forgot about it. So it’s different now.”
And different it sure is. While his film career is on the up and up, Andre did say he’d still be writing and recording new music, whether for himself or others. “My whole motivation is, I don’t want to mess these people’s songs up, more than anything than let me do something great. I try to do great, but it’s just a different mind frame now. I don’t sit around and rap everyday. I don’t.”
Mess things up is what Andre definitely does not do. What we know for sure is that when he does feature, he goes hard. Just take a look at his use of language and rhyming patterns on his verse that featured on the Rick Ross track ‘Sixteen’ that featured on Ross’ God Forgives I Don’t album:
Summer ’88, or was it ’89
Or was it wintertime, ah, never mind
I’m in my room, boomin’
Drawin’ LL Cool J album covers with crayolas on construction paper
I’m trying to fuck my neighbor, I’m tryna hook my waves up
I’m tryna pull my grades up, to get them saddle lace ups
Before Le Marc was Jacob, before them girls wore makeup
Before my voice would break up, before we’d tour them shake clubs
Before my mama wake up, before my palms would cake up
Before they tell me they love me and we’ll never breakup
Before the time she makes love, to someone that I thought was, my homeboy
But boy, was I wrong, now
I don’t budge, don’t want much, just a roof and porch
And a Porsche, and a horse and unfor-tunately
But of course an assort-ment of tor-ches that scor-ches the skin, when they enter
Intru-ders, whose tutors did a lousy job
How’s he god if he lets Lucifer let loose on us
That noose on us won’t loosen up but loose enough to juice us up
Make us think we do so much and do it big
Like they don’t let us win, I can’t pretend
But I do admit it, it feel good when the hood pseudo-celebrate
Hence why every time we dine we eat until our belly aches
Andre if you’re reading this – we need you.