André 3000 Closes Out Jazz Festival Performing 'New Blue Sun'

Former OutKast member, Andre “3000” Benjamin, who released an instrumental flute album last year was the featured and closing act at this year’s 47th annual Atlanta Jazz Festival. Fans were gifted with the sounds of his flute as he performed songs off his solo offering, “New Blue Sun.”

According to Atlanta News First, Andre 3000 closed the festival and fans gave their opinion of his set.

“I really liked it,” said Jiggetts. “It’s good music to just kind of focus to, and so given this is my first time seeing him live, I’m excited to see him in any capacity.”

The festival was not only open to the public, there was no admission price, which wasn’t lost on this fan.

“Anytime you get a free André 3000 concert, you really just have to take advantage of that,” said Kenny Okafor, who visits the Atlanta Jazz Festival regularly.

The festival reportedly brought out approximately 150,000 attendees who visited over the three-day event.

The free annual celebration of culture, community, and jazz recently took place this past weekend from Saturday, May 25, through Monday, May 27, at Piedmont Park. The festivities were open to the public daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Hip-hop fans were anxious when hearing that Andre was finally releasing a solo album, something people have been yearning for since the duo (his rhyming partner, Big Boi, who has released several projects as a solo artist) stopped recording as a group. So, when fans got the news that he was releasing an album the music world was happy but, he stated that he would not be rapping on the album.

He expressed in an interview with NPR, that he doesn’t have it in him to rap, but he still wanted to record music.

“In these times, it just comes harder for me to do it and I don’t know why. I mean I try it all the time,” he said. “It’s not like I don’t try or it’s not like I have a lot of these songs just sitting — I have songs but it’s not like rap things that I really feel happy about sharing. And really, that’s the most important part. I have to feel happy about sharing it.”