André 3000‘s flute-filled album New Blue Sun arrived to much fanfare late last month – but it almost had a different name.
As he continues to make his rounds to promote the new effort, 3 Stacks spoke with Citizen Magazine in a new interview published on Sunday (December 3). Amid the convo, the OutKast rapper has revealed the LP was originally titled Everything Is Too Loud – but he ultimately felt that it was just too negative.
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“We’re the loudest that we’ve ever been,” André said of the music landscape. “At one point, the album was called Everything Is Too Loud. But then I just felt like that’s a negative title. You know? I didn’t want to put negative energy out. So I was like, ‘What’s a positive way to say the same thing?’ So New Blue Sun is introducing a new kind of volume, you know? It’s looking past the complaint and trying to figure out, well, what can we do about it?”
The album has already made history, as the opening track, “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time,” became the lengthiest song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100.
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The ambient instrumental, which debuted at No. 90 on the Hot 100, has a runtime of 12 minutes and 20 seconds.
The record was previously held by Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version),” which clocks in at 10 minutes and 13 seconds. That song topped the Billboard Hot 100 back in November 2021.
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Released on November 17 via Epic Records, New Blue Sun debuted at No. 30 on the Billboard 200 after earning just over 24,000 album-equivalent units in its first week.
Producer Buckwild recently praised André 3000 for outselling recent releases from fellow rap greats like Nas and Lil Wayne.
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“@andre3000 first week sales reign supreme,” he wrote on Instagram. “Outselling mainstream rappers with an ambient flute album is such an André 3000 thing to do.”
The list included albums like Nas’ Magic 2 (17,000), Lil Wayne’s Tha Fix Before Tha VI (19,000), Kodak Black’s Pistolz & Pearlz (23,000), French Montana’s Coke Boys 6 (21,000) and Ice Spice‘s Like..? (15,000), among others.
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André 3000 explained his decision to ditch rapping on New Blue Sun during an in-depth interview with NPR last month.
“I don’t want to troll people,” he said. “I don’t want people to think, ‘Oh, this André 3000 album is coming!’ And you play it and like, ‘Oh man, no verses.’ So even actually on the packaging, you’ll see it says, ‘Warning: no bars.’
“It’s letting you know what it is off the top. But also, I love rap music because it was a part of my youth. So I would love to be out here with everybody rapping, because it’s almost like fun and being on the playground.”
He continued: “I would love to be out here playing with everybody, but it’s just not happening for me. This is the realest thing that’s coming right now. Not to say that I would never do it again, but those are not the things that are coming right now. And I have to present what’s given to me at the time.
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“So the title, ‘I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a “Rap” Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time’ [is] because this album is about wind and breathing. In that way, it is true. It is literally blowing me this way and I’m blowing flutes and I’m blowing digital instruments.”
