The last time André 3000 attended the Met Gala, he entered through the kitchen.

“I rarely do red carpets,” said André, recalling how he skirted the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s famous Fifth Avenue steps in 2008. “And so we devised a plan for me to go through the bottom of the building. And so I’m going through the kitchen, I’m hollering at cooks, we’re chopping it up. I was so happy to be walking through this dirty kitchen with my tuxedo on. It was kind of like a spy stealth mission to actually get to the Met.”

This year, 3 Stacks went the opposite of incognito.

André 3000 wearing the piano(!) at the Met Gala

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

In a 2025 Met Gala moment that could only be orchestrated by the OutKast alum, woodwind master, fashion impresario, and ATLien himself, André pulled up to the carpet with an enormous grand piano strapped to his back. And in an even more unexpected flourish, while he was on his way to the museum, he dropped a surprise new EP.

The record, 7 piano sketches, is the first new André 3000 project since New Blue Sun, the vibey flute-based New Age album that arrived out of left field in 2023 following a period of experimentation with woodwind instruments. Like New Blue Sun, 7 piano sketches doesn’t include any rapping. As the title suggests, it consists of seven raw, improvisational solo-piano pieces, plus oddball voice-note introductions at the top of each number by André, a studio engineer, and the choreographer Fatima Robinson. (The press release announcing the EP came with a “warning: no bars.”)

André 3000, image architect Law Roach, and Burberry chief creative officer Daniel Lee at André’s final fitting