The jazz pianist Matthew Shipp has described André 3000’s new improvisational piano EP as “complete and utter crap”.
Earlier this week (May 5), the former OutKast man dropped the surprise EP ‘7 Piano Sketches’, the follow-up to his 2023 avant-garde flute album ‘New Blue Sun’.
Released in the aftermath of his appearance at the Met Gala, where he walked around with an enormous piano strapped to his back, he told fans that this EP also featured “no bars”, describing it as a series of improvisations on piano mostly recorded at a house in Texas.
“These piano pieces weren’t recorded with the intention of presenting them in any formal way to the public,” he continued. “They were personal, at home recordings. I would sometimes text them to my family and friends.”
Shipp, a celebrated American jazz pianist and composer known for his work with David S. Ware, William Parker and J, Spaceman, has had his say on the EP in a lengthy and savage takedown on Facebook.
“So a friend called me up and mentioned that Andre 3000 has a piano album out,” he wrote. “I was like what. I checked it out on youtube – my impression of it. I think it is complete and utter crap – horrific, god-awful insipidly wretched nothing.”
“Oh my fucking god this is some atrocious shite – is he some type of fucking asshole? Is he a complete and utter dilletante? I could go into detail about why each cut is stillborn – but why bother – it does not even deserve the attention of a critique it is so dreadful. The guy is not a pianist – that is the beginning and the end of it – what an ugly piano sound.”
His post goes on to criticise the storytelling ability of André’s playing, claiming that there are “so many horn players” that could “play so much better”.
“This sounds to me like pure fraud – what a lack of respect for the discipline by someone who in my opinion is a complete asshole for doing this – it is depressing that this garbage will get any attention because he has a name and fame – there is nothing refreshing about the naivety of it – it is just downright dreadful and awful – true fucking crap – insipidly wretched nothing.”
In announcing the EP, André added that the songs had been recorded almost a decade before ‘New Blue Sun’, originally titled as ‘The Best Worst Rap Album In History’. He went on to share a snippet of the original liner notes, which read: “It’s jokingly the worst rap album in history because there are no lyrics on it at all. It’s the best because it’s the free-est emotionally and best I’ve felt personally. It’s the best because it’s like a palette cleanser for me.”
André’s instrumental EP comes amidst comments he made in 2023 claiming he had “aged” out of raps, 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….”
In other news, André has said OutKast are “further away” from new music than “we have ever been”.