André 3000 Surprised by Album of the Year Grammy Nomination for 'New Blue Sun'

André 3000 was surprised that his album New Blue Sun is nominated for Album of the Year at next year’s Grammys.

The legendary rapper expressed to Variety that he was shocked, but happy because people are tuned into it. "I felt that we tried to campaign to see if we could get into the alternative jazz or ambient category,” he explained. "So this morning, when the album of the year category popped up, I was really, really surprised because I didn’t think that that many people even knew about it. So I’m just happy that the votes came in that way and that people were paying attention, more than anything."

André 3Stacks also touched on the desire to be recognized for his work. “People as humans, we want validation for our time of being here. These awards kind of do that in a way,” he explained.

“Of course I’m not thinking of the Grammys when I’m making an album,” he continued. “That’s not a thing. But yeah, even on the street when someone tells you, ‘Man, I love this album, me and my kids listen to this album every morning,’ that’s validation. So it’s just validation or proof of infiltrating people, proof of people enjoying that. I can dig that.”

André’s New Blue Sun is going up against some heavy hitters in the Album of the Year category. He’s set to face off against Beyoncé’s COWBOY CARTER, Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet, Charli XCX’s BRAT, Djesse Vol. 4 by Jacob Collier, Billie Eilish’s HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, Chappell Roan’s Chappell Roan The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, and Taylor Swift’s THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT.

Back in September, André 3000 compared his approach to jazz with New Blue Sun to Lil B’s approach to rapping. "I was joking to myself: I was like, I'm almost the Lil B of this type of music," he shared in a chat with the Recording Academy. "Lil B is, they call it based rap. My son actually turned me on to Lil B."

When asked about the parallels between him and Lil B, André 3000 explained that it’s because he’s self-taught. "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."