Andre 3000’s debut solo album is coming this week. However, it’s not what many people may have thought of when he initially announced it.

Now, in a new GQ video cover story – the first of its kind for the publication – the OutKast artist reiterated his plans not to rap on his new solo album, New Blue Sun, but simply couldn’t. He even revealed that he attempted to work with producers of all ages.

“I’ve worked with some of the newest, freshest, youngest, and old-school producers. I get beats all the time. I try to write all the time,” Andre told the magazine. “Even now people think, Oh, man, he’s just sitting on raps, or he’s just holding these raps hostage. I ain’t got no raps like that. It actually feels…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. And 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….”

When speaking about OutKast and the general notion of releasing hip-hop music, he compared any prospects to being a “recovering addict” and aging boxers. “I jot down what’s going on in my life. But to make it into an entertaining song to where it’s just not self-serving or it’s not just—like there’s a part of entertaining someone else too.”

“And what’s that saying with recovering addicts? They say, ‘The longer I’m out of it, the better chances I have of staying out of it,’” he added before noting that veteran boxers will take on an exhibition once in a while (a comparison to him making appearances on other artists’ albums over the years) but “they’re not stepping in the ring.”

In an interview with NPR published Monday (November 13), Andre doubled down on how he wanted to rap on New Blue Sun, but simply couldn’t. The tracklisting reveals that the first song is titled “I Really Wanted To Make A Rap Album, But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time.” 3 Stacks further explained why his bars are vacant from the project during the interview.

“I don’t want to troll people. I don’t want people to think, Oh, this André 3000 album is coming! And you play it and like, Oh man, no verses. So even actually on the packaging, you’ll see it says, “Warning: no bars,” he explained. “It’s letting you know what it is off the top. But also, I love rap music because it was a part of my youth. So I would love to be out here with everybody rapping, because it’s almost like fun and being on the playground.”

Andre continued: “I would love to be out here playing with everybody, but it’s just not happening for me. This is the realest thing that’s coming right now. Not to say that I would never do it again, but those are not the things that are coming right now. And I have to present what’s given to me at the time.

“So the title, ‘I Really Wanted To Make A Rap Album, But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time’ [is] because this album is about wind and breathing,” he concluded. “In that way, it is true. It is literally blowing me this way and I’m blowing flutes and I’m blowing digital instruments.”

New Blue Sun will officially be Andre 3000’s first solo album. While 2003’s The Love Below attained all of the characteristics of a solo LP, it was packaged as part of a double disk OutKast release with Big Boi’s Speakerboxxx.