From the genre-bending Southern hip-hop duo OutKast to the smash hit "Hey Ya!" on the duo's twin-solo-albums-but-not-really endeavor "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below," there was a point in time where it seemed that André "André 3000" Benjamin was destined to become a giant crossover sensation. He could rap, sing, play instruments, produce, act, and then some.
Though André's look and sound made him stand out as one of the more eccentric rappers, he was stylish, creative, charming, and gave a great soundbite. "I rarely drink, I don't smoke, so my vice is probably creating. I'm addicted to creating. And women," he told The Guardian in 2005. The very next year, OutKast put out one more record, "Idlewild." After that — crickets. Apart from the occasional quick feature, André 3000 essentially disappeared from the public eye.
Starting in 2019, the rapper's music started making waves again ... but this time, it's because people started spotting him in different places, just hanging out and playing the flute at airports and open mics. This new hobby led to a 2023 comeback album, which turned out to be an instrumental flute album called "New Blue Sun." If that's not eccentric enough, André informed his fans why he chose this particular medium, instead of returning to the genre that made him famous, by naming the first track, "I Swear I Really Wanted To Make A Rap Album, But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time."
