I was 15 years old when I received my first hip-hop album as a gift – a radio-edited version of “Aquemini,” by Outkast. I was drawn in by an infectious, bass-thumping single that shared the name of a Civil Rights Movement icon, Rosa Parks. Maybe it was mischief that drew me to the musical stylings of André Benjamin, aka André 3000, because my parents were rather strict about the type of music that ran through my ears. 

A quarter-century later, André’s music is still having a profound effect on me and how I listen to music. Back in the late 1990s, bass-thumping music caught the South’s ear and led to Atlanta’s rise in the hip-hop scene. Now, André’s flirtations with jazz music are taking myself and others beyond his cult of personality and into a deeper appreciation for instrumentation. During a week-long slate of shows at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, André was the headliner for the New Blue Sun tour, a monthslong trek highlighting his foray into being a flutist. 

“It’s not the typical André 3000 musical experience that we’ve all grown up listening to, but I felt like people were really receptive to it,” says Robert Boone Jr., a drummer who has won a Grammy with the Count Basie Orchestra and was in the audience in Atlanta. “There were no cell phones, so you had to sit there and listen to see what was going on. It honestly made me think, just even beyond the concert, ‘What can I do, or what can any type of instrumental musician do, to connect with the audience?”

André was always seen as the more improvisational and experimental member of Outkast, and so it has gone with the tour. “This is special,” he said as he and his band ran through their set. “This is new music that has never been played before, and will never be played again.”