André 3000 Announces Solo Album Of Flute Instrumentals, Out Friday

By any measure, Outkast’s André 3000 is one of the greatest rapper who have ever lived. He’s also one of the most reluctant. Unless you could his half of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, André has never released a solo album. He hasn’t released an album of any kind since Outkast’s Idlewild soundtrack in 2006. In recent years, André has popped up, very occasionally, to rap on other people’s songs, often to dazzling effect. (Most recently, it was on Killer Mike’s “Scientists & Engineers.”) But now André has announced a massive new solo LP called New Blue Sun, and it’s apparently coming out this Friday. But it’s not a rap album. Instead, it’s 90 minutes of flute instrumentals. Really.