André 3000 arrived at this year’s Met Gala with a baby grand piano strapped to his back and a trash bag in hand, creating the kind of striking visual metaphor that artists dream of but rarely execute. Moments after stepping onto the gala’s celebrated carpet, he surprise-released his latest musical venture, 7 piano sketches, a 16-minute collection of instrumental improvisations. If spectacle can be both grand and understated at once, André Benjamin—the artist still known affectionately as Three Stacks—found a way.
In typical André fashion, the move was both a sly wink and an earnest revelation. The piano itself—crafted by design firm Pink Sparrow to resemble a Steinway Model S Baby Grand but weighing just 30 pounds—functioned as a bridge between fashion and music. Styled by Law Roach in collaboration with Burberry and André’s own newly-revived menswear brand Benji Bixby, the ensemble was emblematic of the gala’s theme, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” yet playfully subverted it by substituting classic dandy accessories for a portable instrument.
The EP itself is as improvisational as its release strategy. Recorded largely on André’s iPhone nearly a decade ago, the sketches were personal musings never intended for public consumption. “They were personal, at-home recordings,” André explained on Instagram. “I would sometimes text them to my family and friends.” In a musical era increasingly obsessed with polished studio productions, the lo-fi nature of 7 piano sketches—raw, immediate, and slightly grainy—is refreshing. It’s an intentional embrace of imperfection, an aesthetic André explicitly champions: “I’d rather go amateur interesting than master boring,” he recently told Rolling Stone.
Influenced by the likes of Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner, Philip Glass, Stephen Sondheim, Joni Mitchell, and Vince Guaraldi, André’s piano improvisations bear the gentle fingerprints of jazz, ambient, and minimalist traditions. The standout track, “off rhythm laughter,” layers looped chuckles and ambient drones over soft keys, creating a brief but mesmerizing soundscape. Meanwhile, tracks like “hotel lobby pianos” nod playfully to Dave Brubeck’s iconic “Take Five,” demonstrating André’s musical awareness and willingness to converse freely with his influences.
While the EP’s whimsical track titles (e.g., “when you’re a ant and you wake up in an awesome mood, about to drive your son to school, only to discover that you left the lights on in the car last night so your battery is drained”) reflect André’s penchant for playful, off-kilter poetry, the music beneath these titles is contemplative and deeply personal. André described the EP as a “palette cleanser,” originally dubbed The Best Worst Rap Album In History—a humorous nod to the absence of lyrics.
Beyond the music itself, André’s Met Gala appearance reinforced the thematic undercurrents of reinvention and artistic authenticity that define this stage of his career. As he moves further from his Outkast roots—yet soon to be celebrated with Big Boi at their upcoming induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame—André appears determined to chart a path defined solely by personal curiosity and experimentation. His prior project, 2023’s Grammy-nominated New Blue Sun, found him wielding a flute in meditative excursions, already signaling a definitive turn away from traditional hip-hop expectations.
This duality—embracing tradition while dismantling expectation—sits at the heart of André’s artistic identity. The piano strapped to his back wasn’t merely fashion; it was a fitting visual for a man who carries the weight of legacy lightly, always ready to set it down to try something new. With 7 piano sketches, André 3000 quietly insists on an artist’s right to evolve without permission, reshaping not only his own narrative but reminding us of the creative freedom possible when one truly abandons the rear-view mirror.
