OutKast rapper also weighs in on his wake-up time, his go-to music, his love of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” and more
Andre 3000 sits down with Questlove for a wide-ranging chat about a variety of topics — including the rapper’s standout instrumental LP New Blue Sun — in the latest episode of the Roots drummer’s Questlove Supreme podcast.
Over the hour-long interview — which Questlove called “two friends, two colleagues having a conversation with each other” — Andre 3000 is asked questions like what time he wakes up (8 a.m.), his morning routine (he’s never had a Twitter account but “YouTube is my universe”), his choice of breakfast cereal, his move to Venice Beach, California and much more.
On the musical front, Andre 3000 also talked about why he gravitated toward the flute, citing the instrument’s “mobileness.” “I carry it everywhere, so any inspiration I get, I pick it up and mess around,” Andre 3000 said. “Can’t do that with a bass guitar, can’t do that with a piano.” He added that he owns more than 30 flutes, and that he’s been “interested” in wind instruments since The Love Below, where he played saxophone.
Andre 3000 also shared what his current go-to music that he escapes to is. “Right now, I’m into a classical, Steve Reich-ish kind of. It’s very repetitive, calming and meditative, but at the same time very complex and moving. And it’s rhythmic,” he said.
In November, Andre 3000 surprise-released his New Blue Sun, his first-ever solo album, albeit not the rap album all his fans have been clamoring for. Rolling Stone’s review of the album said, “André 3000’s 87-minute ambient music odyssey is a gorgeous, deeply contemporary, prismatic breath of fresh incense.”