Why Did Andre 3000 Quit? OutKast Legend Explained His 17-Year Hiatus
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He’s regarded as one of the best rappers of all time, releasing some of the most impactful and experimental music in the last several decades. But after a 17-year hiatus, the reason why Andre 3000 quit music fits his poetic outlook on making music. Andre 3000, whose full name is Andre Lauren Benjamin, was born on May 27, 1975, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
He met his OutKast partner, Big Boi (Antwan Patton), while attending Tri-Cities High School; a duo widely regarded as one of the most successful and influential hip-hop groups in the 1990s and 2000s. OutKast released their debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, in 1994, which gained critical acclaim. They went on to release several more successful albums, including ATLiens, Aquemini, and Stankonia. Their 2003 double album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, featured separate solo projects for Andre 3000 and Big Boi and included the hit single “Hey Ya!” from Andre’s half.
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The duo released one more album, Idlewild, in 2006, and it’s the last fans have heard from 3000. In 2017, he told GQ that, “when I pass away, people will find hours and hours of files” of music he’s recorded since. “It’s hard drives of me just in the house alone playing horrible guitar. Me playing piano. Me playing a little sax. I was trying to find out: What can I be excited about? Because I never was, to me, a great producer or a great writer or a great rapper. I always felt that I was less than everybody else, so I fought harder. My only gauge to know when something was good was how I felt it. Like, Oh, man, this is dope. Or, This is new. So I got to a place where nothing excited me. I kept trying and pushing and pushing.”
He continued: “I got to a place where I was just kinda in a loop. My son would see me go through all these phases. He would be like, I’ve seen my dad have all these great ideas. He had this band idea. And this other idea. And I never followed through with any of it. So when my parents passed away and he went off to college, it was like, Man, what am I gonna do? So I felt like it was time to come and study or replenish myself. In New York, they have the fashion thing and they have the stage thing—I’ve never done stage before. And they have music. So I saw myself coming to study an instrument, coming to learn Spanish and probably try stage. I’ve only done one.”
Fans’ prayers have finally be answered. On November 17, 2023, 3000 released New Blue Son, with no bars, no beats, and no sub-bass. It was described by NPR as “a stunning 87-minute mind-bender, minimalist and experimental, tribal and transcendent.” So why did Andre 3000 quit? Here’s what we know.
Why did Andre 3000 quit?
The reason why Andre 3000 quit is quite simple: he genuinely didn’t think he had anything to say. In the November 2023 GQ Men of the Year issue, 3000 explained: “I’ve worked with some of the newest, freshest, youngest, and old-school producers. I get beats all the time. I try to write all the time,” he explained.
“Even now people think, ‘Oh, man, he’s just sitting on raps, or he’s just holding these raps hostage. I ain’t got no raps like that. It actually feels…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…”
He compared rapping to boxing. “But look at the greatest boxers now,” Andre said. “What do they do? They do exhibition fights every now and then, but they’re not stepping in the ring. You know what I mean?”
Why did OutKast break up?
After Idlewilde, Andre 3000 and Big Boi went on to follow their own solo careers. But they reunited in 2014 at Coachella, in celebration of their 20th anniversary together. It was a disaster. “It’s hard to say what went wrong,” wrote the reviewer for The Guardian at the time, who gave the performance 2 stars.
“At times it felt like two solo shows attempting awkwardly to become one, with Big Boi doing the bulk of the heavy lifting – and Shutterbugg, one of his solo tracks, received one of the best receptions of the night. Andre 3000 repeatedly asked the crowd ‘You still here?’ and ‘Are y’all alive?’, which suggests that perhaps he knew something wasn’t connecting. By the time Hey Ya! came around in a depressingly unceremonious finale, he appeared to have given up.”
Andre reflected on this fallout. “There’s a certain chemistry that me and Big Boi had and have,” he told GQ. “I think over time, people don’t understand that chemistry changes.” He continued: “I mean, there’s been so many times in my mind where I thought I was done. So it wasn’t even a struggle. It wasn’t like, ‘What am I going to do now?’ Even during all of this, I remember a couple weeks ago talking to my manager and publicist, I really had to ask myself, ‘Do I want to be famous again?’ ” The answer was: no. But at the same time, I want to promote the music.”
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