André 3000 performs at Bimbo’s 365 Club in San Francisco on Feb. 20, 2024. Courtesy Stephanie Port.

SAN FRANCISCO — “I never thought I’d be onstage playing flutes,” André 3000 told the audience two thirds of the way through his early show at The Independent on Saturday. After a moment of applause from the sold-out crowd, the iconic Atlanta rapper, born André Lauren Benjamin, completed the thought: “But I never thought I’d be in Outkast either!”

“Go towards what you’re into,” he extolled.

The audience, some seated in front of the stage, others standing further back, was clearly into it, as attendees hooted and whistled and at other times added their own bird calls and animal sounds to the sonic mix.

Benjamin’s set early Saturday was part of a spate of intimate Bay Area shows the MC played over the last week. With a completely improvised set of songs, Benjamin’s latest endeavor resembles the kinds of touring done by jazz musicians like Charlie Parker and Miles Davis in the ’50s and ’60s.

André 3000 performs at Bimbo’s 365 Club in San Francisco on Feb. 20, 2024.

Benjamin’s 2023 album, New Blue Sun, surprised fans with its mellow jazz flavors and the conspicuous absence of any rapping. Fans remained confused about the album’s genesis despite the opening song’s title, “I swear, I Really Wanted To Make A ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time.”

But there was no such confusion Saturday as Benjamin – dressed in white overalls and a knit cap – and his four backing musicians led the crowd through various sonic landscapes: discordant and stormy seas, cloud-filled skies, gauzy lakesides, steamy synthesized marshlands. The audience responded to the ebbs and flows in the music, cheering as ecstatic musical moments grew out of washes of cymbals with André 3000 often conjuring a flurry of notes, like scattering flocks of birds, or long soulful and serpentine melodies that curled about themselves in repose.

Bandleader and percussionist Carlos Niño, who according to Benjamin first approached him about making music in a “well-appointed grocery store in Venice Beach,” used a variety of unusual percussion instruments to create a shimmering and throbbing musical pulse that propelled the music forward. Additional percussionist Deantoni Parks provided a low and resonant beating heart to much of the music with a bass drum played with mallets.

André 3000 performs at Bimbo’s 365 Club in San Francisco on Feb. 20, 2024.

Guitarist Nate Mercereau, who Benjamin said “recorded a duet with the Golden Gate Bridge,” delivered understated guitar parts using a variety of implements including another pair of mallets. Keyboardist Surya Botofasina added synthesized washes of sound to the graceful soundscapes as well as flurries of chirps and beeps to the more chaotic musical moments.

Working with the live band has clearly pushed Benjamin musically, as his playing seems to have risen to another level since the release of the album.

“Our small human brains can’t figure out what it’s going to be like in the end,” André 3000 said before the last song of the set. “It will reveal itself, which is why I’m here tonight.” He then spoke in a mysterious dialect, sounding a bit like Spanish, a bit like pig Latin, and a bit like gibberish.

Before sending the crowd out into a city celebrating Chinese New Year with a pride and fireworks, Benjamin copped to his con.

“San Francisco, I gotta be honest with you. I just made that shit up!” he said.