On January 23rd, Andre 3000 hosted a one-night-only event showcasing a film, directed by Terence Nance, for his album New Blue Sun that dropped in November of last year. Having watched the project, I don’t think 3 Stacks had the strongest grip on how to create the world he envisioned for this soundscape and how to bring his fans into it.
Let me start by saying I am 100% in favor of Black people leaning into their weird, artsy, counter-culture and super niche bag when it comes to artistic expression. As the purveyors of cool and the community that over indexes (almost to the point of exclusivity) in the quorum of who decides what’s next, we can sometimes be hypercritical of ourselves in ways that slow or inhibit creative innovation. It’s because of this that when I see people buck against that very high stakes barrier, I try to support it as much as I can, if their work or life outside their art isn’t harmful. So when Andre 3000 announced New Blue Sun as his first solo project and that it wouldn’t be rap, my eagerness for something new overrode my disappointment at not getting the moody, thoughtful and introspective bars that excite me about Andre.
As a fan of Terence’s Random Acts of Flyness (BOTH seasons!) and his work with Solange, I was really excited that these two were working together and was ready to be impressed by what they came up with. For 1 hour and 28 minutes Andre 3000 flowed through various poses, meditations and dances that oscillated between interpretive movement and literal expressions of concepts in his song titles. All of this within a single framed shot on a blue cyc wall with various random props like his flute, a traffic cone, a candle, a pair of sneakers and a carved panther head, all while Terence Nance transitioned through different shades of Blue lighting. In retrospect, the blue’s were really arresting and did, in fact, do a lot of the emotional heavy lifting. There was also some depth of field in the camera work that was interesting, but beyond that, I remember about 3 of the 8 tracks in, getting to the realization that this was all the visual we were going to get.
There was a live streamed Q&A immediately after hosted by Terence where Andre answered a bunch of questions from the various locations the film was being shown, but to my surprise the majority of them were questions about the album and what he’s been up to, very little was about the film we’d just watched. Towards the end of the music portion, I struggled so much being there and enjoying it because first, it was really just much of the same we’d seen in the previous hour. But also, having a real internal conflict about why it felt so underwhelming and why I felt like saying that was overly critical. I think because the music is already so heady and cerebral, that to watch Andre’s expressions of that be so abstract, I really had trouble understanding what it was he wanted us to take from the experience. In interviews he gave around the albums release, he mentioned his state of mind and the emotional intentions he put into the music while making it. The way that showed up on the screen, it often felt awkward and weirdly voyeuristic watching how his body improvised and responded to this music that was also improvised, in a way that didn’t feel like it fit.
And that’s not to say that abstract, minimalist and improvisational can’t be entertaining, informational, or affective art. And that’s also not asking to be spoon-fed “the meaning of art”. In 2010, performance and conceptual artist Marina Abramovic opened her MoMa Retrospective The Artist Is Present by sharing a minute of silence with each stranger that sat with her. On it’s own and without an accompanying album, there’s at least one clear statement of intent and that’s shared, non-physical intimacy between strangers.
When Kanye West first released Yeezus he organized guerrilla style video projections in major cities where fans could be together to hear and see the visuals (for free!) in community with one another in a way that expressed the way he wanted the album to be received. I was there in New York in Lower Manhattan and remember that feeling leaving the parking lot after they’d been played and the buzz of excitement from having seen a tweet hours before, making it to the location and just being a part of such an ephemeral moment.
To me that thesis seemed to be missing from Andre and Terence’s collab. In missing that, it kinda felt self-indulgent just sitting watching this man dance around an empty room for 90-minutes and $35. So it was particularly noteworthy when, after sharing how the original album he presented to his label was 3 hours long, someone asked how he edited it down to the version he released, and his response was “You gotta be unselfish sometimes…and consider how other people are going to receive it. Otherwise [if you’re just creating it for you] stay in your room and listen to it then.”
I feel like there are a lot ways this visual work could’ve made it to us and been a clearer window or more immersive invitation into the space that Andre 3000 created with New Blue Sun. Instead of chasing the latest IMAX music film trend, presenting it in the Integratron or organizing alongside the yoga and sound bath groups already taking place in every major city to use the visual to double down on the intention of the album. That’s just something I gave very little thought to for the purpose of having an example for this write up. I’m just still a little disappointed that the minds in the room came up with what made it onto the screen.
More than anything, I love to see artists like Andre 3000 and Drake (to some degree with Honestly, Nevermind) take big creative swings that feel like departures from the things that’ve made them super famous. Granted, they’re artists who are established enough to be able to afford those risks. But seeing success in taking those chances hopefully translates to pushing a risk-averse industry, and larger online artistic community, into a space that gives artists (like Dawn Richard or Jordan Ward) a little more room to try some new shit and be taken seriously. So, no, I wasn’t particularly wowed by Andre 3000s visual for New Blue Sun. I’d go so far as to say it was really not great. But I also want him to keep trying. For our sake.
