Andre 3000 Reveals Smart Reason Why He Has An Instagram Account

Andre 3000 is not a social media savvy person. He doesn’t aspire to be. He doesn’t engage with fans through posts, and he’s never even had a Facebook profile under his name. The rapper does, however, have an Instagram account. It’s an odd exception to make, especially given Andre’s resistance to public attention has seemingly grown with age. You’d think he was a Myspace, Facebook kind of guy, not the IG kind. That being said, the rapper had a specific reason for getting an Instagram account.

Andre 3000 recently attended the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France. The acclaimed actor sat for a conversation with Meta’s Alvin Bowles, and admitted that claimed his IG account in order to prevent other people from impersonating him. “I’ve never had a Facebook account,” he told the panel crowd. “I only have Instagram to prevent people from stealing my name, but I’ve never posted anything.” Three Stack’s reasoning checks out, but he lied about never posting anything. He’s actually made two posts in the last year alone. The first was a link to his solo album, New Blue Sun, and the second was a video of him at the dentist. We’re also confused by the latter. “Summer teeth cleaning reminder,” the caption reads.

Andre 3000’s allergy towards social media makes sense given his desire for privacy. He was one of the defining pop stars of the 2000s, yet he rejected the spotlight when Outkast unofficially split in 2006. He talked about the desire for privacy, and his reluctance to mess it up with a new album, during a chat with The Bitter Southerner. “I had to ask myself, Man, do you want to be noticed again,” he admitted. “You know, if you haven’t done anything in a while, people kind of… It fizzles out. And I had to decide that I wanted to talk about the music more than I wanted to not be noticed, I guess.”

Three Stacks hasn’t gone completely MIA of course. He blessed fans with guest verses throughout the 2010s, but the urge to rap isn’t what it used to be. The Outkast superstar isn’t sitting on a classic album of rhymes, as he told GQ in February. “Even now, people think, ‘Oh, man, he’s just sitting on raps, or he’s just holding these raps hostage,” he explained. “I ain’t got no raps like that.” What he does, have, though, is a sense of musical fulfillment. Regardless of what LL Cool J says, Andre 3000 is happy to be making experimental flute music. Just don’t expect to see him talking about it on Instagram.