André 3000 Compares His Approach to Jazz to Lil B's Take on Hip-Hop: 'It's Like a Punk Way of Rapping'

André 3000 has compared his approach to jazz with his New Blue Sun album to that of Lil B's approach to rapping.

In a chat with the Recording Academy , the Outkast rapper reflected on his pivot to ambient and new-age jazz with his flute-centric solo album and said that he considers Sun Ra one of his peers. But, he also considers the incredibly prolific Bay Area legend Lil B a peer. "I was joking to myself: I was like, I'm almost the Lil B of this type of music," he shared. "Lil B is, they call it based rap. My son actually turned me on to Lil B."

He was asked to elaborate more on the parallels between him and Lil B and said it mostly comes down to the improvisational approach he takes to hip-hop.

"A lot of what he's doing is made up or improv or really reactionary," he said. "It's not this studied, perfect thing. Because I came up in the '90s, we came up with Nas and Wu-Tang and some of the [people] considered the best rappers around. It was about clarity. It was more of a studied kind of thing."

By contrast, he suggested that Lil B is "not studied at all," which prompts a different reaction from listeners. "It's kind of like a punk way of rapping, and I like it," he said. "[And what I'm doing is] almost like punk jazz or punk spiritual jazz. it's pure feeling. For me, it's really physical, because I'm coming from a different way. It's always been like that for me when it comes to instruments. Like, if I pick up a guitar, it's shapes in my hand, or if I'm on a piano, it's shapes on my fingers."

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Elsewhere in the interview, he said that there's "always new music to come," but refused to share more details on what or when fans can expect to hear more from him. "It's too early for me to even be able to describe what's coming," he wrote. "But I'm always recording and trying to figure out new ways to do stuff."

You can read the full interview here .