André 3000 Is At Peace (For Now)

One of the greatest rappers of our time in conversation with one of the most lauded culture writers alive. This is André 3000 and Hanif Abdurraqib on freedom, fame, flutes, and the burning question: ‘You gonna put some beats on that shit?’

It is difficult to discern whether the sidewalk was once occupied by a person adorned in a costume of holiness, or evil. On the morning after Halloween, electric light trembles down a sidewalk in Venice, California, where the air lets out a collective groan, the kind that signals a population who, perhaps, dragged themselves out of bed this morning and called off work, midweek responsibilities be damned. Waiting for André 3000 on the sidewalk in front of The Butcher’s Daughter (restaurant, not actual offspring of a butcher), I assess the discarded black cloak. Could be a nun, or a priest. Could simply be some tossed-off goth accessory, unrelated to the holiday. While I weigh my options, in the distance the shade inches south and the sun spills over something that shines and reflects. It’s teeth – a set of sharp, glistening teeth, vampiric in nature. So, not entirely evil, but not entirely holy, either.

André 3000 enters the restaurant and weaves through the narrowed, crowded center of it with no fanfare. No second glances from any of the people immersed in their conversations, no whispers or pointing. He’s wearing pinstripe overalls over a gray long-sleeved shirt, and a pair of unlaced Black Cement Jordan 3s. He’s beaming, as if there’s a song in his head that isn’t the mid-aughts pop trickling out of the restaurant’s speakers. He’s carrying a flute in his left hand. 

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