Around the time of his The Love Below album, Andre started to feel like he was being watched in social settings:I was in a creative hole, a personal hole, and I was still not dealing with my mom's and my father's deaths. And really, I don't know if I have still. You know: Just push that away. The problem with being successful is you can do whatever you do times ten. And no one to stop you. You can easily go down the wrong path and you get into that place. And the thing that brings you out is other people.
On the potential disappointment of never dropping a solo album:Before that album, I moved to California. It started a little bit before then, and I just chucked it off as 'Aw, yeah, man, I just need to take a break.' And I started to notice it getting worse and worse. Because the more you run from it, the worse it gets. You don't want to explain it, because you don't want to be a weak link around your friends. I never told my crew for a long time, so I just started getting to myself. Spending more time with myself and stopped touring. And it felt great for me to do that, because it's like, 'Phew, I don't like that life, I don't like that confrontation.'
Read the rest of the interview over at GQ.Follow Lawrence Burney on Twitter.Like, 'I wanted to put out my own project.' Things I've been working on. But that's for my personal [satisfaction], you know? And when my dad passed away, there was mourning for him dying, but there was a whole 'nother wave of mourning because I realized, 'Whoa, he died in his house alone.' And I wondered: Had he done everything he wanted to do?