New music has finally arrived from the man that made flamboyancy amongst the hip-hop community cool in a time where gangsta rap reigned supreme.
Speculation over whether André 3000 will ever release solo music has become commonplace over the last decade. The shape-shifting emcee released six lauded studio albums that pulled at the threads of psychedelia, dub, jazz, funk, and gospel as one half of the seminal hip-hop duo OutKast before eventually disappearing in to a seemingly premeditated obscurity in 2007.
Benjamin has since made fleeting returns to music only to lend a hand to the work of others – with notable instances being on Frank Ocean’s ‘Pink Matter’ and ‘Solo (Reprise)’, Erykah Badu’s ‘Hello’ and T.I.’s ‘Sorry’ – and has been clear in recent years that he has no intention of returning to the rap genre. Instead, he has turned his focus to acting, producing bootleg Anita Baker t-shirts and developing his ongoing collaborative relationship with the preppy-favoured Swedish sneaker company Tretorn with whom he currently occupies the position of creative director.
However that isn’t to say that Benjamin has been resting on his laurels in regard to the creation of his own music. In a 2017 interview with GQ magazine, the musician stated,
“When I pass away, people will find hours and hours of files… Hard drives and shit. It’s hard drives of me just in the house alone playing horrible guitar. Me playing piano. Me playing a little sax.”
The guitar playing in question featured heavily on Benjamin’s acclaimed and genre-bending 2003 album The Love Below, as well as contributing to his landing the role of Jimi Hendrix in the 2013 biopic All Is By My Side where he spent six hours each day learning to play the guitar ambidextrously prior to filming. With that said, we all know that what lies within those vaults will inevitably be gold.
Now, in celebration of Mother’s Day and in honour of his parents, new music has finally arrived from the man that made flamboyancy amongst the hip-hop community cool in a time where gangsta rap reigned supreme.
The aforementioned arrives in the form of an EP entitled Look Ma No Hands that consists of two tracks; ‘Me&My (To Bury Your Parents)’ and ‘Look Ma No Hands’.
On the former, 3 Stacks pays a touching tribute to his late parents over piano accompaniment courtesy of Kevin Kendrick and flourishes of Benjamin’s own bass clarinet playing. The latter is a sprawling seventeen minute instrumental arrangement that sees Benjamin tread the realms of jazz, with English musician James Blake enlisted for piano playing duties.
The tracks were shared alongside several posts from Benjamin on his newly created Instagram account which you can find here.
Here’s to hoping that what lies below is the precursor to a larger release.
Words by Sam Wilkinson.
Fruit and Grooves Collective 