Louisiana emcee Lil Wayne recently expressed his sadness at the idea that André 3000 thinks he’s too old to rap because he is over 40 years old. The ‘A Milli’ lyricist was responding to a recent GQ interview with the Outkast icon, during which he expressed why he chose to release an instrumental album.
The emcee (real name André Benjamin) dropped his project, New Blue Sun, last month and following its release, he sat down for a conversation with GQ, during which he stated, “Sometimes it feels inauthentic for me to rap because I don’t have anything to talk about in that way. I’m 48 years old. And not to say that age is a thing that dictates what you rap about, but in a way, it does.”
Making self-deprecating jokes about his life as an over-40-year-old, Benjamin explained nothing going on with him warrants bars, divulging, “Things that happen in my life, like, what are you talking about? ‘I got to go get a colonoscopy’. What are you rapping about? ‘My eyesight is going bad’. You can find cool ways to say it, but….”
However, having read the interview, Lil Wayne, during an appearance on Tyga’s Apple Music radio show, said that even he, as a 41-year-old, found André’s comments “depressing” and even countered his age-based approach to hip-hop.
Explaining how his age hasn’t affected his ability to speak out, Wayne exclaimed, “I have everything to talk about. I thought that may be a downfall of me staying in it because, at our age, you may hear what’s going on and feel I’m so out of that. I ain’t about to drop nothing. So that’s why I say I don’t listen. I just go in my little hole, I love what I do, put it out, and hopefully, we swing for the fences, man.”
Many fans have criticised artists such as Jay-Z, who was 48 when he released 4:44, for overstaying their welcome and not allowing younger artists to shine. However, Lil Wayne refutes that age should determine when you can and can’t create.
André 3000’s latest project consists of minimalist and experimental flute music, and it comes 17 years after Outkast’s sixth and final studio album, 2006’s Idlewild. However, many fans were underwhelmed when they realised there were no vocals on the body of work.
