7 Great André 3000 Guest Verses

Dear listeners,

After announcing a new album just a few days ago, André 3000 has released his solo debut, “New Blue Sun.” Coming nearly two decades into his rap duo Outkast’s long hiatus, the album’s mere existence is surprising enough. But here’s an understatement: It is not what most people were expecting from the man behind hits as disparately brilliant as “Ms. Jackson,” “B.O.B.” and “Hey Ya!,” who is arguably one of the most skilled and beloved rappers of his generation. It’s actually not a rap album at all. It is, in fact, an 88-minute instrumental album of ambient woodwind compositions.

Seriously.

If you do not believe me, consider the title of the 12-minute opening track, which is at once a mea culpa and a statement of purpose: “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time.” And then listen to it, because it’s crystalline and beautiful in a way that recalls Laraaji, Brian Eno and Philip Glass — all cited as influences on the album.

“New Blue Sun” is a genuine left turn in an all-too-predictable musical world, and it’s definitely worth spending some quality time with this weekend. But for today’s playlist, I wanted to turn back the clock and consider André’s prowess as a rapper by highlighting some of his greatest guest verses.

Since Outkast released its sixth (and seemingly final) studio album, “Idlewild,” in 2006, Big Boi has released three solo albums, while André’s musical output has largely been limited to a smattering of guest verses. But oh, what verses they’ve been.

André has played the wise sensei on two era-defining Frank Ocean albums and duetted poetically with his baby’s mother, Erykah Badu. He’s lent some extraterrestrial flair to tracks from superstars like Beyoncé and Drake, and teamed up with underground favorites like Devin the Dude and Killer Mike. His verses still feel like special events, though, because he doesn’t just lend them out to anybody. His co-signs feel personally curated, because they’re still relatively rare.

Dré can be funny, poignant, incisive, revealing and obfuscating — often within the span of a single verse. He has a canted and utterly idiosyncratic approach to rhythm; he always seems to hop on the offbeat and then hit the ground running. More than most of his contemporaries, he manages to be both lustful and self-aware about his own lust. He’s an otherworldly ATLien and he’s down to earth. He is cooler than cool. He’s ice-cold.

So if an instrumental flute album wasn’t what you were hoping to get from André 3000, give it a moment. And listen to this playlist to appreciate all the razor-sharp bars he’s given us in the meantime.

Listen along on Spotify as you read.

1. UGK featuring Outkast: “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You)”

Regal, occasionally crass and thoroughly tender, this 2007 stone-cold classic is one of hip-hop’s great odes to monogamy. André’s plain-spoken, feelings-forward verse opens the track and sets the tone: “Hate to see y’all frown,” he says of the women with whom he’s broken it off to go exclusive with another, “but I’d rather see her smiling.” (Listen on YouTube)

2. Frank Ocean: “Solo (Reprise)”

André bursts into the world of Frank Ocean’s 2016 opus “Blonde” in a gust of rapid-fire wordiness. Accompanied by James Blake’s sparse piano, he experiments with some inspired “solo”/“so low” wordplay (“so now I’m so low that I can see under the skirt of an ant”) as his flow careens around corners and suddenly — as if to assert the control he always has over his rhythm — yanks the emergency brake. That it’s the most prominent feature on Ocean’s deeply personal album attests to the respect the younger artist has for 3000’s artistry. (Listen on YouTube)

3. Beyoncé featuring André 3000: “Party”

On this verse, featured on a single from Beyoncé’s 2011 album “4,” André indulges in some light braggadocio, makes up his own memorable pronunciation of “gyro,” and, approaching his late 30s, expresses ambivalence about his evolving status as an elder statesman of hip-hop: “Kiddo say he looks up to me, this just makes me feel old.” (Listen on YouTube)

4. Rick Ross featuring André 3000: “Sixteen”

This eight-minute track from Rick Ross’s 2012 album “God Forgives, I Don’t” is a meta-meditation on what happens when “16 ain’t enough” — or how difficult it is to condense one’s life into a standard, 16-bar rap verse. Both Ross and 3000 manage to cram multitudes into their rhymes here. André’s feature in particular is an absolute tour de force, beginning with a vivid flashback to his youth (when he was just “drawin’ LL Cool J album covers with Crayolas on construction paper”) and somehow shifting into another gear toward the end, as he offers some clear-eyed reportage from the other side of one’s childhood dream coming true. (Listen on YouTube)

5. Drake featuring Lil Wayne and André 3000: “The Real Her”

From way back in 2011, when Drake was still trying to sound like a genuine romantic, André 3000 slid onto this “Take Care” track to show him how it was done, name-dropping Adele and laying his soul bare. “Everybody has an addiction,” he raps with arresting simplicity. “Mine happens to be you.” (Listen on YouTube)

6. Devin the Dude: “What a Job”

Another meta-ode to a musician’s creative process, this song from Devin the Dude’s gloriously named 2007 album “Waitin’ to Inhale” finds the Houston rapper — along with Snoop Dogg and André 3000 — offering perspective on and gratitude for his chosen profession. André uses part of his verse to make an argument against then-rampant piracy: “If I come to your job, take your corn on the cob,” he asks, “and take a couple kernels off it, that would be all right with you?” (Listen on YouTube)

7. Killer Mike and André 3000 featuring Future and Eryn Allen Kane, “Scientists & Engineers”

André proves he’s still got bars in the present tense on this track from Killer Mike’s 2023 album “Michael,” which just last week scored Grammy nominations for best rap performance and best rap song. Amid some evocative bleeps and bloops, André sounds like an alien visitor beaming in from another galaxy, though his verse is also imbued with plenty of human vulnerability: “Too much that I can’t communicate with all of them,” he raps. “I do wish I had scientists to engineer friends.” Later on, though, he’s more optimistic when considering the future: “Hope I’m 80 when I get my second wind.” We should all hope so, too. (Listen on YouTube)

Keep your heart, Three Stacks, keep your heart,

Lindsay

The Amplifier Playlist

Listen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.

“7 Great André 3000 Guest Verses” track list
Track 1: UGK featuring Outkast, “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You)”
Track 2: Frank Ocean, “Solo (Reprise)”
Track 3: Beyoncé featuring André 3000, “Party”
Track 4: Rick Ross featuring André 3000, “Sixteen”
Track 5: Drake featuring Lil Wayne and André 3000, “The Real Her”
Track 6: Devin the Dude, “What a Job”
Track 7: Killer Mike and André 3000 featuring Future and Eryn Allen Kane, “Scientists & Engineers”

Bonus Tracks

If you ever find yourself in Brussels (as I did on vacation last week), I cannot recommend highly enough a visit to the Musical Instruments Museum. The M.I.M. boasts a huge collection of instruments new, old and even older, including some wonderful curiosities. I got to see one of Adolphe Sax’s seven-bell trumpets (which was not as successful as one of his other inventions, the saxophone), a notorious glass harmonica and a collection of woodwinds extensive enough to have satisfied André 3000.

Also, on this week’s Friday Playlist, we have new music from Drake, Dua Lipa, Julia Holter and more. Listen here.