best nu-andre 3000 verse

This is "Royal Flush" for me, but I'll rep for "Walk It Out", IPA, and "You" (although lulz at him rapping about hitting on the cashier at whole foods)

"IPA" all the way, with "Throw Some D's" a distant second. "Royal Flush" doesn't really have enough payoff to justify 40-something bars, and a lot of these are full of moments that annoy the fuck out of me (especially "Walk It Out" and "What A Job").

your white tee to me
looks like a night gown

3 stacks don't fuck around, if he wants to wear a nightgown he just wears a nightgown

I like his verse on Goodie Mob's Black Ice:

Friends romans countrymen lend me your eardrums, it was a beautiful day up in the neighbourhood
Yellows and greens and blues and browns and greys and hues that ooze beneath delapidated wood

"nu-"

geez I only know like a third of these, guess I haven't been paying attention. What is Royal Flush from, is that a leadoff single or something for a soundtrack or what...? (I know that one and I voted for it, just curious)

"What a Job" is kind of boring and overrated in general.

xp: supposed to be from Big Boi's solo album

Big Boi is on some battered wife syndrome shit for real, "I'm always underrated and outshined by my partner, so I'm gonna drop this solo album...oh, and the first single features him and he spits so many bars that by the end of the song you forgot I'm even on it"

yeah, that's weird to me, too, but I think RF might have just been a leak

yeah, i think the official single is the one w/ Mary J., I think I heard it recently and it sounded pretty good.

I'm always underrated and outshined by my partner

I don't think this is true at all fwiw - Speakerboxxxx was waaay better than Love Below, but I guess it didn't have the ginormous single on it so maybe you have a point. And really wtf has Andre been doing since all that half-assed shit on Love Below: that cartoon, a few guest verses = eh whatever. Got That Purp Vol II otoh is killer.

'the way you move' was pretty fucking big

yeah but Hey Ya was EVERYWHERE

i'm not saying Big Boi isn't good or doesn't get his respect, but c'mon you can't argue that Andre isn't way more famous and acclaimed overall.

I'd just like to point out that BB's verse on RF is killer, too. Rae's is kind meh tho.

yeah, that's weird to me, too, but I think RF might have just been a leak

-- The Reverend, Wednesday, July 30, 2008 1:44 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

no, it was pressed as an official 12" w/ art and everything

also you are crazy re: raekwon, most listenable verse on the song

but c'mon you can't argue that Andre isn't way more famous and acclaimed overall.

is he? I thought the general consensus was that the Love Below was a bit of an unfocused mess (which it is)

don't get me wrong, i don't trust anyone who thinks that bullshit was better than Speakerboxxx. i'm talking about in terms of media profile and general rap canon bullshit (i.e. Andre making the top 10 of that stupid MTV lists the last 2 years and BB not being mentioned in either).

!!! did not know that

Taking Sides: Andre 3000 vs. Big Boi

rae sounds like he's on autopilot

Walk it out.

lol ``
somedude';

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wooooooow

lol shakey only in the ILM universe is big boi accepted as the better rapper than andre

"but big boi only talks about pimpin...3 stacks talks about real creative shit like SPACESHIPS"

lol ``
somedude';

this shit is depressing

https://soundcloud.com/therealandre3000benjamin

roughness of the vocals aside, I...kinda like "Look Ma No Hands"?

I like these.

these are also apparently half a year old?

new album on Friday (no verses)

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/14/1212661071/andre-3000-album

Possible new "infamous reviled album that was subsequently reassessed and found to be great" incoming.

idk i think this “flute-heavy instrumental album” might not be an enduring classic

i'm looking forward to it

idk i think this “flute-heavy instrumental album” might not be an enduring classic

― is he disgruntled adrian? (voodoo chili), Tuesday, November 14, 2023 7:31 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I laughed at your joke and then I clicked the link.

Huh.

The track titles!

Looking at the track titles at least he is self-aware and has humor about releasing an instrumental flute album.

On the bass, Derek Smalls

He wrote this

the track titles have sold me on this, tbh

Man it's too bad that this will becomes a punch line for most people, he's just out here aging as gracefully as humanly possible.

that one Key & Peele sketch has a lot to answer for

i love that interview and i already hate how this will be received as a prank

who knows if it will be good, but honestly i think the worst case scenario (given the very able people playing on it) is some solid if slightly anonymous floaty jazz stuff

it's not a prank, he's following his muse. like he said says in track #1, "this is literally the way the wind blew me this time"

the tracklist:

01 I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a “Rap” Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time
02 The Slang Word P(*)ssy Rolls Off the Tongue With Far Better Ease Than the Proper Word Vagina . Do You Agree?
03 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
04 BuyPoloDisorder’s Daughter Wears a 3000® Button Down Embroidered
05 Ninety Three ’Til Infinity And Beyoncé
06 Ghandi, Dalai Lama, Your Lord & Savior J.C. / Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy
07 Ants to You, Gods to Who ?
08 Dreams Once Buried Beneath the Dungeon Floor Slowly Sprout Into Undying Gardens

is this self-released?

If you change your mind, the vinyl is only $36

lol

I am looking forward to the Pitchfork review that will inevitably compare this to Cecil Taylor, Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, and William Basinski

― waste of compute (One Eye Open), Wednesday, May 7, 2025 3:17 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

you weren't far off. We got McCoy Tyner, Thelonious Monk and...Stephen Sondheim

Ethan Iverson for the prosecution.

André 3000 is famous for the deeply satisfying hip-hop group Outkast, and especially famous for the novelty number “Hey Ya,” an enormous hit that everybody liked (including me). After years of silence André 3000 is now trying to take instrumental music by storm. Last year he made an album of ambient improv flute appropriate for getting high or doing yoga. I was never the target audience for this kind of music, so—despite wall-to-wall coverage in what remains of music journalism—-I ignored it.

But a solo piano album? Enough is enough. I simply demand expertise if the topic is solo piano, and André 3000 is strictly amateur hour. Based on the flute music, the expectation was that the piano music would be meditative and boring. Not at all! These compositions are spiky, weird, and lost. He’s playing with a beat, but the beat is uneven because he’s not a pianist. He’s looking for chords, but the chords don’t live next to each other in true harmony because he’s not a pianist. A few inchoate melodies start to emerge, but he can’t make a song because he’s not a pianist.

...

The tracks are ancient, from 2013, and just done with iPhone voice memo, so the production values are hideous, including during the trivial announcements of song titles at the start of each track. Had he even been thinking about this music before getting the call to peacock at the gala? The whole album is essentially unlistenable. If he was trying to troll, the joke needed to be more obvious.

The press comment for Apple Music declares, “May 5, 2025, will stand now as a historic benchmark for André 3000.” Duly noted. Duly fucking noted. If you are famous, you can do anything.

Read the whole thing; he brings up Bartók, and even offers a partial transcription of one piece.

Matthew Shipp went in on this record on FB. r/jazz is mad about it but I'm not, jazz players laying down the law makes me happy

Recording it on an iPhone sure is something

i liked the flute album and actually gave it another spin after this one. i don't think i'll be revisiting this one save for one track

I have zero interest in this EP (the flute album was shit), but Iverson starting off by comparing a dippy 17-min vanity project to our current fascist oligarchy is kind of pathetic.

and fwiw the pitchfork review cites Monk and Sondheim as comparisons raised by André himself not the reviewer; the Tyner reference is also p qualified

this bad music is def being graded on a curve by critics but let's not go nuts

Matt Shipp said he might take down his FB post, so I'll preserve it here:

so a friend called me up and mentioned that Andre 3000 has a piano album out -- I was like what. I checked it out on YouTube -- my impression of it. I think it is complete and utter crap -- horrific -- god awful insipidly wretched nothing. Oh my fucking god this is some atrocious shite -- is he some type of fucking asshole? Is he a complete and utter dilettante? I could go into detail about why each cut is stillborn -- but why bother -- it does not even deserve the attention of a critique it is so dreadful. The guy is not a pianist -- that is the beginning and the end of it -- what an ugly piano sound -- let's not even talk about telling a story with harmony -- sounds like he listens to a bunch of music gets a couple of gestures in his head -- sits down in a stream of consciousness and gets at some gesture for a few bars of something that he has not internalized -- and barely knows on the most superficial level and then he loses the thread -- of course there is zero composition going on in the improvisations -- no language to speak of just a few cliches in his head that he can't actually play the cliche but he hits and tries at it until he peters out quickly -- wow -- he is so horrible at playing harmony -- so many horn players that piano is not their instrument play so much better -- this sounds to me like pure fraud -- what a lack of respect for the discipline by someone who in my opinion is a complete asshole for doing this -- it is depressing that this garbage will get any attention because he has a name and fame -- there is nothing refreshing about the naivety of it -- it is just downright dreadful and awful -- true fucking crap -- insipidly wretched nothing

i'm surprised he had that much to say about such boring, motionless music.

TT 513: Good God, this new André 3000 piano album is just awful

lol

oops I see that was linked earlier, sorry

Iverson's musical directions in his transcription include "expressionless yet uneven" and "struggling".

the retroactive shade thrown by calling "hey ya" 'a novelty' cuts pretty efficiently. this is the kind of album and pr campaign that "hey ya" was making fun of and reacting to. i don't begrudge anyone who gets something out of these records, but i hate andre and his music now. this is the last thing i'll ever say about it.

okay, one last thing, but this is malicious: i saw a recent interview with him where he was praising and being impressed by how new school rappers record exclusively one line at a time, relying completely on punch-ins. it figures he has no clue how to play an instrument with any respect when he has zero respect for the form he's supposedly really good at. i will reiterate: he's impressed that contemporary rappers literally can't rap. dude's lost the plot completely.

‪Trummors‬
✧@trumm✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 12s
The haters are pissed about Andre 3000's piano album. But wait until they hear about his next project, a series of lectures on Marxist dialectics and cultural critique, in the style of the Frankfurt School, and released under his given name Andre Benjamin (pronounced Ben-Ya-Mean).

just checked this out on youtube and it's all at this sweet spot of being consistently bad without ever being quite bad enough to be interesting.

lol

xxxp I haven’t read that interview but i had the impression that Andre’s feelings about rap were that it had evolved into something that didn’t suit his talents and he no longer had much to contribute, and didn’t want to be an old man complaining about the youth. Idk maybe he’s being too positive and i gave up on the piano album after one track but that’s not a perspective i find offensive.

Why would you want to put any effort into anything ever again when you can sell out tours - and earn praise - doing nothing but half-assed flute?

It reminds of a quote that may or may not be from Zappa about guitar synths: why would a first-rate guitarist want to sound like a third-rate saxophone player?

you mean the guy who made entire albums with a Synclavier?

Point taken, though!

It reminds of a quote that may or may not be from Zappa about guitar synths: why would a first-rate guitarist want to sound like a third-rate saxophone player?

Lemme just email Kurt Rosenwinkel's manager real quick...

xpost well, assuming the attribution is correct, Zappa was nothing if not full of shit!

Anyone's worst work could be a stepping stone to their best work.

My lifestyle determines my deathstyle

otm

Anyone's worst work could be a stepping stone to their best work.

Lol, sure, in the sense that with practice bad piano and flute players in theory get better. As demonstrated through the guitar acting in BOC's "The Marshall Plan."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQqfegOZ_X0

I started comparing this to the moment when John Mellencamp directed a movie, but I’ll go touch grass instead.

Falling from Grace isn't at all bad either

Given his dabbling in acting I'm surprised by Andre's lame pivot to this bullshit rather than the more predictable route of "now I want to direct."

directing requires effort

I bet he could find a way to do it with minimal effort.

Set up a camera, tell people to go in front of it, how hard can it be?

"We decided to try something different and improvise the entire film. Not just the acting, the whole thing. Improvise the set, improvise the lighting, improvise the music ... the whole thing. I've been deeply immersed in the best, Cassavetes, Robin Williams, Marcel the Shell, all of the greats. Did you know David Bowie studied with Marcel the Shell? He's one of my biggest influences, Marcel the Shell. I mean, Bowie, too, that goes without saying, but Marcel the Shell walked so that Bowie can run, and Bowie ran so that I could fly."

Sounds like Masked and Anonymous.

"Give my regards to West Compton"...

How soon we forget the Outlast movie where Andre plays a jazz piano player

I think Jon Benjamin did the definitive version of this with "Well, I Should Have... (Learned How To Play Piano)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTQEVXLAfc4

Well, You Needn't ... Learn How to Play Your Instrument

In a way I respect Andre's view that rap is youth culture and he should bow out of it except when invited, that whatever the current generation is doing with it is de facto cool & correct, and that he has no interest in making throwback old man rap records.

It's also kind of nice and weirdly intimate to hear him noodling around on piano in a very vulnerable way, the only reason it falls flat is that putting out as an album and pressing it to vinyl feels unavoidably like a statement, the kind that he seems loathe to make these days. It's a bind, if he had put it out as a curio under a pseudonym the music wouldn't stand on its own and people would have no interest, but it also doesn't work as an official release under his own name. I think it would have come off better if he had just thrown it up on soundcloud or as a free Bandcamp release.

yeah it looks very much like a scam to get money from his fanbase. even if it isn't that, it certainly looks like it.

I blame the people around him for gassing him up and convincing him to put this out officially (or maybe that's not true and he just felt like it, or he needed some $ and didn't want to have to do Outkast shows).

I guess we should be thankful that he just likes noodling and isn't a nazi.

pretty low bar tbh

sry no more

It sounds exactly like Come On Feel The Lemonheads closing track The Jello Fund

It should be a tape!

as an iPhone memo, it should have been released solely by forcing it onto Bono’s phone and no-one else’s

now that's the sort of artistic trolling i can get behind.

"punish bono, not your fans"