André 3000 Shares 'Funny' Observation About 'New Blue Sun' Criticism

André 3000 has addressed the criticism aimed at his New Blue Sun album, saying most of the negative reactions have come from OutKast fans — not Hip Hop or jazz heads.

Fans were shocked last year when the rap legend finally dropped his long-awaited debut solo LP, only for it to be an instrumental project built around woodwind instruments.

Speaking to the Chicago Tribune ahead of his recent tour stop in the city, 3 Stacks shared a “funny” observation about where most of the backlash has come from.

“It’s kind of funny: The backlash is actually not from the rap community, or the jazz and spiritual jazz community. There’s actually more support — surprising support — from both sides,” he said.

“I think it’s more [OutKast] fans, which I understand. I always try to put myself in their shoes: If my favorite rapper said, ‘I’m not rapping’ and I like it, I like it. But if I don’t, I move on. I think some people take it as blasphemy or something.”

André 3000 also admitted that he did not anticipate the amount of “ridicule” he would receive for his departure from rap.

“In retrospect, I’ve asked myself, Would I have been better off releasing it under a new name? But I’m glad I didn’t,” he added. “The ridicule that I get from it is the thing I did not expect.

“If I’m a fan of anybody, I’m not waiting 17 years for this great rap album to come out. I’m thinking, ‘Well, that ship has sailed.'”

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“I felt like the name ‘André 3000’ showed the bigger story — the journey from where I was to now. I kept it so that wouldn’t get lost.”

The Atlanta native previously admitted that his pivot to playing the flute was not planned.

Speaking to the crowd during a performance in Los Angeles earlier this year, he said: “’How you just gon’ be rapping and then just get on stage playing fucking flutes?’ Like, I didn’t plan to be the flute n-gga. I didn’t plan to be that. It just kinda, like, it happened.

“When I started rapping, I didn’t know what it would be. It was just me and Big Boi at the crib watching rap videos. Then we was like, ‘Let’s try it.’

“I know we have plans. I know we go to school. We have intentions, we plan for things — but we all freestyling. We all making this shit up as we go along. We have intentions but we don’t really know.”