André 3000 has released a new song ‘Moving Day’ and a previously unreleased ‘New Blue Sun’ track ‘Tunnels Of Egypt’.
The former OutKast star, real name André Benjamin, released his debut solo album ‘New Blue Sun’ in November last year and it surprised some fans by consisting entirely of instrumental experimental flute tracks.
Now, the musician has shared ‘Moving Day’, a track that featured in a short film of the same name earlier this week. The trippy Dexter Navy-directed film, released on the one-year anniversary of the album’s release, sees Benjamin playing his flute while travelling around town while his voiceover describes how the project came about.
Check out the full 11-minute ‘Moving Day’ here:
Additionally, Benjamin has released a version of the track in which it is played in reverse, titled ‘Day Moving’.
He has also unveiled a track from the album’s recording sessions that had not previously been shared called ‘Tunnels Of Egypt’. Listen to that here:
Earlier this week, Benjamin teased new music would be coming over the next year, saying: “I don’t wanna pinpoint what it is, but I just want to express more … put it like that.”
This month, ‘New Blue Sun’ was nominated for Album Of The Year and Best Alternative Jazz Album at the Grammys, and its opening track, ‘I Swear, I Really Wanted To Make A Rap Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time,’ picked up a Best Instrumental Composition nomination too.
Discussing the nominations with the New York Times, he admitted: “We were trying to be nominated in some type of way for alternative jazz or ambient, possibly. But I was totally surprised by this. So yeah, it was super, super, super duper cool.”
Last year, Benjamin said that he thought he’d “aged out” of rap, telling GQ: “Sometimes it feels inauthentic for me to rap because I don’t have anything to talk about in that way. I’m 48 years old. And not to say that age is a thing that dictates what you rap about, but in a way it does.
“And things that happen in my life, like, what are you talking about? ‘I got to go get a colonoscopy’. What are you rapping about? ‘My eyesight is going bad’. You can find cool ways to say it, but….”