Andre 3000, half of ATL’s legendary Southernplayalistic duo better known as Outkast admitted recently in an interview that he was selling out this summer when he reunited with Big Boi to do shows.

photo credit: Sharon Algana

3000 admitted to The Fader that he was “more excited” about deciding which slogans he donned his jumpsuits with than actually playing shows, and that his motivation for even accepting the reunion in the first place was merely finantial. First he said,

“I didn’t wanna do the tour. We hadn’t performed in 10 years. It was old songs.”

Andre then immediately jumped back on his excitement about the reasoning behind his 47 different jumpsuits saying,

“I’m like, How am I gonna present these songs? I don’t have nothing new to say. So I was like, maybe I can start saying new stuff while doing these old songs,” he said of the slogans. “It became a theme where I was more excited about this than the actual show. This is fun, running out in these.”

All 47 jumpsuits are currently on display at the Miami art convention Art Basel.

Some highlights from the collection read, “I just wanna sleep”, “Make love like war”, “I’ve never had f@cebook, twitt@r or inst@gram” and “My dad had cool albums”.

According to NME, when continuing about feeling like a sellout, Andre said,

“I felt weird about going out onstage and doing it again. I felt like people would be like, ‘Y’all are doing all these festivals, y’all are just doing it for money. And I felt like a sell-out, honestly. So I was like, if I’m in on the joke, I’ll feel cool about it,” he said. “I’m 39, I got a 17-year-old kid, and I gotta support certain things. So I felt like there was a certain sell-out in a way, because I didn’t wanna do it—I knew I was doing it for a reason. So maybe if I’m telling people, ‘I am selling out,’ then it’s not as bad as pretending.”

Some of the shows from this summers tour included Coachella in April, the Treasure Island Music Festival in San Francisco, September’s Outkast Festival in Atlanta, and ended on Halloween in Los Angeles. No future shows are scheduled at this time.

This isn’t the first time Andre has expressed his unwillingness to reunite with Big Boi and rapping still at 40. In August in an interview with the New York Times’ Jon Caramanica, he said.

“I remember, at like 25, saying, “I don’t want to be a 40-year-old rapper.” I’m 39 now, and I’m still standing by that. I’m such a fan that I don’t want to infiltrate it with old blood…
My son, he’s 16. Him and his buddies, they’ll be in the car, and I’ll say, “Hey, what do you think about this verse?” That’s my gauge at this point. I don’t have the pulse. Part of art is knowing when not to put paint on. And when to change your medium.”