André 3000 has explained to Questlove that his first time meeting Prince didn’t exactly go the way he planned.
The OutKast MC sat down with The Roots co-founder for his Questlove Supreme podcast on Wednesday (December 13), where he revealed that he couldn’t tell if The Purple One was showing him love or punking him.
AD LOADING...
“You know, when people pass away, you just kinda want to respect [their legacy], but I think Prince would—I think he would enjoy it,” he said about his latest project, New Blue Sun. “I [had] met Prince in passing. [Around the time of] The Love Below, I lived in L.A. I remember me and the homie goin’ out to a club on Sunset [Boulevard].”
He continued: “Mind you, I still gotta pee. So I got over to this booth, and it’s Prince, and he’s sitting. And I’m very nervous, man. He motions his hand [to sit down]. I sat down and I didn’t know what to say. He could tell that I didn’t know what to say.”
AD LOADING...
“So I’m sitting there, and he starts talking about ‘Hey Ya,’” 3 Stacks said, explaining that he also felt “freaked out” by the experience. “But what he said, I didn’t know how to take it, if he was taking a dig at me or what. He said, ‘I like that song, “Hey Ya,” man, like, I thought I was the only person who did songs in those tempos.’ That’s what he said to me. I didn’t know if he was like, ‘Mmm. Take that, n-gga.’ I didn’t know how to take it; this is my hero.
“The album had just come out, and we were trying to figure out the next single. And so I didn’t know what to say him, so I said, ‘Hey, have you heard the album?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, I heard it.’ I say, ‘Well, what do you think the next single should be?’ Then he said another Prince thing; he said, ‘In my day, we only had one shot.’ Basically, he was saying, it don’t matter now, whatever you do, it don’t matter. And I didn’t know how to take that either. It’s like, okay, cool,” he concluded.
Last month, André 3000 shared another Prince story during the promotion of his latest “flute-based” album.
The Atlanta-bred lyricist recalled a low point during his and Big Boi‘s 2014 reunion tour that led Prince to come calling.
AD LOADING...
“I ain’t been on stage in damn near 15, 20 years! So it was odd for me,” he said of OutKast’s headlining performance at Coachella, which received mixed reviews. “And right before the show, you see Paul McCartney walk and go to the left side of the stage. And then Prince walks to the right side of the stage. I’m like, ‘Ahhh! What the fuck, man?!’
“You know, there’s new technology like ear buds and shit. I’d never used ear buds in my life! We were always just in front of the monitors or listening to the speakers, so if you were watching the Coachella show, I got people in my ear talking and shit. It’s like ‘What the hell is going on?!’”
He continued: “Halfway through the show, I was already checked out […] so I was just trying to get through it. Yeah, the show happens and it was a bomb night. It was horrible — in my eyes.”
André 3000 then revealed that Prince phoned him up the day after the disappointing set and helped lift his spirits.
AD LOADING...
“The very next morning I get a call from Prince,” he said. “I don’t know him like that, I don’t know how he got my number — I do not know. And the first thing he says is, ‘You know what your problem is? You don’t realize how big y’all are.’
“Then he was like, ‘You gotta remind people who you are.’ And from that point on, I was like, ‘Okay.’”
