Andre 3000 has found some parallels between himself and another equally enigmatic rapper amid his foray into more experimental music — Lil B.
published on Wednesday, the OutKast rapper not only name-dropped the Berkeley rapper as a peer, but explained the similarities he sees between his and Lil B’s approach to making music.
When asked who he considers his peers for the jazz music he’s creating — he released his debut solo album, New Blue Sun, in November last year — 3 Stacks said, “A long line of historical bands like Sun Ra, the Chicago Art Ensemble. Even rapper Lil B.”
“I was joking to myself: I was like, I’m almost the Lil B of this type of music,” he continued. “Lil B is, they call it based rap. My son actually turned me on to Lil B.”
The musician then spoke further on his connection to Lil B and said that, “A lot of what he’s doing is made up or improv or really reactionary. It’s not this studied, perfect thing. Because I came up in the ‘90s, we came up with Nas and Wu-Tang and some of the [people] considered the best rappers around. It was about clarity. It was more of a studied kind of thing.”
“A person like Lil B is not studied at all. But the way the kids respond to him, it’s because of that,” he added. “It’s kind of like a punk way of rapping, and I like it. [And what I’m doing is] almost like punk jazz or punk spiritual jazz. It’s pure feeling.”
As one of rap’s most eccentric figures, who’s rapped over everything from Kraftwerk samples to new age-sounding instrumentals, it’s not too surprising that Lil B has found a fan in Andre 3000. (Fun fact: Lil B released a song called “OutKast” on his 2020 mixtape, Trap Oz.) Now, all we need is for the Based God to rap over the entire 10-and-a-half minutes of “That Night in Hawaii When I Turned into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control… Sh¥t Was Wild.”
Elsewhere in the interview, 3000 talked about how he recently revisited some of his work in OutKast, as well as guest verses he did on other songs — something he confessed he rarely does.
“So one day I was in my hotel room listening to all this stuff for hours — five hours of albums and guest stuff. And it was surprising because you’re listening as a fan and not remembering where you were at the time when you did them,” he said. “It’s almost like you’re having an out-of-body experience listening to yourself. Then you realize how much time has gone by and how different of a person you are, which is even crazier.”
