Andre 3000
Whole Foods
Think Differently
This album smells like a pile of fragments and retreads until Andre’s Outkast cohort Big Boi joins him near the disc’s conclusion. The eight-minute “Liberation,” also featuring Cee-lo and Erykah Badu, builds like a spiritual, with cascading harmonies and moody piano. The catchiest meld of rapping and singing is “Long Way to Go,” with Gwen Stefani; Clips of MLK create context but feel gimmicky. Andre 3000’s more playful than his colleagues to the north. Comparing the smell of a woman’s neck to “a plate of yams with extra syrup” is disarmingly southern, a reminder hip-hop is as much expression as attitude.
Doug Taylor
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2007.