On his surprise piano EP, André 3000 continues to play with our expectations

Few music icons have consistently pulled magic — or unpredictable pivots — out the hat like André 3000.

After a 30-year career spent defying expectations, his latest sleight of hand finds him moving the keys like Bob James. 7 piano sketches, his newly released surprise EP, follows up the instrumental turn he took on 2023’s New Blue Sun with another non-rap project. This time out, he’s traded in his bag of flutes for a less portable instrument. Which still didn’t stop him from strapping a grand piano mockup to his back for the heaviest reveal at this year’s Met Gala. His red carpet arrival made for the perfectly-timed prelude to the project’s release Monday night.

Unlike the grand scale of his bespoke piano outfit — an elaborate collaboration between Burberry and André’s newly revamped men’s line Benji Bixby — the 16-minute EP is an exercise in brevity. “It’s saying a lot for this little bitty piano album, which is kind of hilarious to me,” André told GQ, drawing a contrast between the two.

Even funnier is how a rapper who never practiced lyrical freestyling has now come to adore the art of improvised instrumentation. That love-affair comes stripped clean to the bone on 7 piano sketches. He recorded most of the music on his iPhone more than a decade ago, “with [no] intention of presenting them in any formal way to the public,” as he wrote on Instagram. “They were personal, at home recordings. I would sometimes text them to my family and friends.” With seven songs of spare, unaccompanied piano — save for one song, “i spend all day waiting for the night,” with a backing drum track — 7 piano sketches feels like the prequel to 2023’s New Blue Sun.

Some of his favorite composers and players include Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner, Philip Glass, Stephen Sondheim, Joni Mitchell and Vince Guaraldi. But André’s approach as an instrumentalist is different than the perfectionist tendencies he displayed on the mic. Here, he’s less interested in maximizing proficiency than he is in capturing inspiration in a bottle.

“To conjure them up,” he wrote on Instagram detailing his song making process, “I spread my fingers out on the keys and randomly but with purpose move them around until I find something that feels good or interesting. If it feels really good I will try to repeat it.” But you can also hear him trying hard not to repeat himself or fall into cliche melodies on “Blueberry Mansions” — the immediate standout on the album and the only song recorded in studio.

His initial title for the album, The Best Worst Rap Album In History, is proof that, more than any one instrument, he’s best at playing with our expectations: “It’s jokingly the worst rap album in history because there are no lyrics on it at all. It’s the best because it’s the free-est emotionally and best I’ve felt personally. It’s the best because it’s like a palette cleanser for me.”

This is André, deconstructed. Still a magician at practice, hat in hand, with nothing up his sleeve but a behind-the-scenes peek at his ever-evolving process. Who knows what he’ll conjure up next?