André 3000 has surprise-released a brand new instrumental venture dubbed 7 Piano Sketches. Because the identify suggests, it’s a seven-song assortment that facilities round piano, with the person tracks prefaced by himself, Emmy Paalman, or Fatima Robinson studying off the music titles. Vocal results and occasional samples, like amusing observe on “Off Rhythm Laughter,” additionally intermittently seem. Give it a pay attention beneath.
“The unique title for it was The Greatest Worst Rap Album in Historical past,” André 3000 stated in a press launch. “And right here is an excerpt from the unique liner notes: ‘It’s jokingly the worst rap album in historical past as a result of there aren’t any lyrics on it in any respect. It’s the perfect as a result of it’s the free-est emotionally and greatest I’ve felt personally. It’s the perfect as a result of it’s like a palette cleanser for me.’”
Partially composed and recorded previous to New Blue Solar, 7 Piano Sketches first took form practically a decade in the past when André 3000 stayed in a sparse Texas home together with his son that solely had a piano, two beds, and some TV screens. “Having lived with the recordings for a time, André was drawn to the thought of making extra and sharing them within the Spring, a time of 12 months that guarantees that life, creativity, and chance are ever-renewing,” a press launch elaborates.
It’s no coincidence that André 3000 dropped this new venture late at evening. He timed the discharge to align together with his look on the 2025 Met Gala in New York, the place he wore a bespoke piano by Burberry on his again, in collaboration with Benji Bixby—an evolution of Benjamin Bixby, André 3000’s late aughts style line—and styled by Regulation Roach. His outfit seems to align with the illustration on the 7 Piano Sketches’s cowl art work.
7 Piano Sketches is André 3000’s first new music since releasing the flute-focused album New Blue Solar in 2023. That served because the Outkast rapper’s debut solo LP, and it earned him three Grammy nominations, together with Album of the 12 months. The 2024 brief movie Transferring Day, directed by Dexter Navy, documented the making of New Blue Solar and included a beforehand unreleased observe from these recording periods.
