The performance was almost as long as the song's title itself, with the rapper performing the song on the flute for nearly 10 minutes
André 3000 brought his latest studio album, New Blue Sunin the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The performance was almost as long as the song itself as the musician performed “That Night In Hawaii When I Turned Into A Panther And Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Could't Control… Sh*t Was Wild” on flute for almost 10 minutes.
The rapper surprised listeners late last year when he announced that his first proper studio album in nearly two decades — and his long-awaited solo debut — would feature no rap at all. New Blue Sun arrived in November with eight songs spanning an hour and a half. “That Night in Hawaii…” isn't even the longest of the entries, with others running in the 12- to 17-minute range.
“It was a reference to a ceremony I had in Hawaii, and on the second day of the ceremony, I actually became the panther,” André told Colbert. “It was an ayahuasca session. I don't know the details of how it happened, but my face contorted and my body started making noises like, “grrrr.” So in the song, I imitate that sound.”
André performed with a handmade Mayan flute designed by his flute teacher, Guillermo Martinez. When asked about his decision to include a warning on the album cover that there would be no 'bars' throughout the record, he explained: 'Fair responsibility. I felt like I wouldn't want people to buy something thinking it was going to be one thing, so I just wanted to let people know as soon as possible – and as loudly as possible – what was in it.”
After the release of the album, Rolling rockAndre Gee argued that André 3000 has earned the right to flute in his own right, writing, “If Andre 3000 bowed to our whims, his star streak as a flutist might never have happened and he'd be making raps that might not you feel 100% confident to put others at ease. Ever since OutKast stopped making music, he's gone from one half of rap's most commercially successful duo to flamboyant culture vagabond, periodically delivering rhyming treatises on his friends' records. If that's all 2023 has to offer, that's more than enough.”
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/andre-3000-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-new-blue-sun-1234953085/