1.
2.
Whenever you have a woman and kids or other responsibilities, two grown-ass men can't live like boys forever. We're still young, we're still tight, and it's always family, but you have to respect that person's ideas and ideologies. I can expect that from [Andre], and he can expect that from me. - Big Boi
Compromise was a pivotal component of OutKast's success. We mean, compromise is a pivotal component in the success of most relationships, both musical and otherwise, but in 'Kast's case it was especially crucial. Andre and Big Boi are two men who, over the years, grew in different directions. Although they first formed OutKast as teenagers, they soon had families of their own to nurture and provide for. With that many outside variables and responsibilities pulling both men apart, there had to be something strong to keep them in orbit with one another.
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3.
You know, coming outta Atlanta we didn't think nobody was gon' get no deal, not with no big company. We thought it was gonna be local for a minute. - André
In 2014, as the South dominates hip-hop's soundscape and a new artist breaks though from the Peach State every week and a half, it's impossible to imagine that at one point and time the Hotlanta rap scene was nothing more than a niche. So, in 1993, when André Benjiman and Antwon Patton were first venturing out as OutKast, getting signed to a major label was the furthest thing from their minds.
There was no precedent for them to strive to emulate. The only major label ATL hip-hop act to come before them was Kris Kross. As serious lyricists from below the Mason Dixon, their options were limited, to say the least. Enter L.A. Reid, the CEO of LaFace Records, an R&B centric label who was looking for their first hip-hop act.
Everything about OutKast's arrival to the game was unorthodox, because there was no blueprint for them to follow. Even their breakout single, "Playas Ball," was first recorded for LaFace's Christmas album. But this lack of a precedent is what helped them become OutKast. They sounded like nothing else and they entered the game like no one else. This was jarring to tastemakers and gatekeepers at the time, but then again, everything about OutKast is jarring.
All that matters is that twenty years ago, Atlanta was a blip on the map. Today, Atlanta is the map. André and Big Boi changed everything.
4.
I don't like to be pinpointed as nuthin'. I don't like it being said we're a political group. I don't like it being said that we're a straght hip hop group. I don't want to be classified as an alternative band. That's what OutKast is to me: You'll never know what they're gonna do. - André
"Creative control" is a term that's synonymous with OutKast's storied career. While many other artists have come into conflict with their record labels over the integrity of their art, André and Big Boi have always been given the freedom to create and experiment. Every album was a quantum leap for OutKast, while most other rappers were stuck in a monotonous orbit of finding their next single and making records for the club.
By the time OutKast had reached their monumental third album, Aquemini, they had become masters of shapeshifting. They could be righteous black cosmonauts on one track, and blaxplotation-era pimps on the next. They careened ever so smoothly from southern fried soul, to futuristic acid jazz, to interstellar trunk rattling rap, all because they had refused to put themselves into a box.
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5.
He'd be a damn fool. Yeah, you can be an 80-year-old rapper at heart but I want to see you get your old ass up there and rock a show. - Big Boi, on how long rappers should go on performing.
A lot of people who we grew up on, who we loved, who were the dopest, I don't want to hear them now. It's true, but they did the best shit ever. - André, on how long rappers should go on performing.
Big Boi states the most obvious truth: no one wants to see a geriatric rap show. But André's response digs a bit deeper into the psyche of music fans everywhere. Sometimes, when we truly love and idolize an artist, we let nostalgia cloud our thoughts of them. We build these human beings up to be Gods, omnipotent beings who live on music's Mt. Olympus, impervious to all those miniclule mortal issues like aging and divorce.
Despite what 'Kast said, we'll contuniue to see our favorite artists live, for their second and third "farewell tours," for the same two reasons we stay in relationships we know have run their course. Hope that the things we love and have grown accustomed to will stay the same, and fear that those people we've let into our homes, who have become family to us, are gone for good.
Now this isn't to say that André and Big Boi are fading into the mist anytime soon. We're just saying, enjoy this moment. OutKast are playing festivals all over nation this summer! That's incredible! Instead of speculating about a new 'Kast album, or wondering what's next for them, see them live this summer. Bring all your friends, and enjoy it. And if turns out that this is the last time we ever see André Benjiman and Antown Patton together, don't be sad. Smile and appreciate everything they've given us. Then walk to the closet mirror and ask yourself if you really wanna see 'Kast perform Rosa Parks from wheelchairs forty years from now.
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6.
No sir. I mean, the combination wouldn't be there... It'd be cool, but it wouldn't be fire, how we want it. - André, on whether he'd ever go solo.
1998 was a transformational year for OutKast, and for hip-hop as a whole. André and Big Boi's third album, Aquemini, was a turning point for the duo, an undisputed classic. Although André and Big Boi were growing increasingly distant from each other lifestyle-wise, musically, they were more intertwined than ever. It was a fragile balance that they had mastered, and many critics wondered how long this precise chemistry could last.
By the time Aquemini hit stores, the break-up rumors were in full gear, and during an interview with John Reed, the inevitable question of two becoming one and one was asked. André chimed in immediately, stating something we now all know to be true—their solo work could never match up to their work together.
For a long time, critics and fans alike begged for a solo André 3000 album, and would refer to Big Boi as the weak link of the duo. But what they never took into account is that OutKast is not like any other group in music. They weren't just two people making music together. At their peak, they were a single entity, creating as one. You can't make the argument of who's iller, André or Big Boi, or who should go solo. They were a single musical organism. A lot of fans wanted a solo Three Stacks album, but it just wouldn't be same. Ironically enough, no one ever anticipated that it would be Big Boi who would have the successful solo career, releasing two stellar projects on Def Jam in the past few years.
7.
Once you start gettin' preachy, that's when you start bein' like an overbearin' parent. We just givin' you everyday life how we see it. That's our whole philosophy, man: Talk about somethin' that people can take somethin' from. - Big Boi
Socially conscious rappers sometimes have a tendency to stand on a proverbial milk crate when delivering their message. They make the mistake of talking at their audience, instead of talking with them. OutKast on the other hand, has never been condescending in their music. Their art has always been a beautiful paradox, both otherworldly and down to earth at the same time. André and Big Boi could discuss UFOs in one line, and the hazards of dope dealing in the next.
Instead of passing judgement, they gave the listener an empathetic voice to relate with.
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8.
If you wasn't from New York, they was like, "Fuck it." But it's like, we put all our goddamn time and effort in doing our albums. And it really don't make no sense for them acting like that there... [the south is] just from another part of the globe. Everybody's going through the same thing, just about. Only thing that'll really change is just where you from. Because [hip-hop] music is all the same; ours just reflects the southern lifestyle. - Big Boi
In 2014, hip-hop lives everywhere. Regional bias has become as irrelevent as public pay phones and Betamax tapes. Hell, the two hottest rappers in the game hail from Chicago and Toronto, Canada. If you were to go back in time and tell the entire audience of the 1995 Source Awards that, their collective heads would explode.
If you weren't from New York or California, forget about it. You were a pariah. There were a couple of exceptions like The Geto Boys and UGK, but the xenophobia in hip-hop was still so thick, you could cut it with a knife. The fear of a third coast was put on full display on August 3, 1995, a day that Questlove referred to as "hip-hop's funeral," at the Source Awards.
After being awarded the Best New Artist award, OutKast was booed by the East Coast-centric crowd. And while the experience hurt both Big Boi and André, they took it in stride and used it as fuel. OutKast also became hip-hop diplomats, frequently reaching out to other regions throughout their career.
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9.
We think about just making the best music we can make of that time—whatever that time and experiences that we goin' through at that time, you know, put out? That's what you're gonna get. - André
Many artists in hip-hop have a set agenda. Their content, sound, and image are all part of a larger marketing scheme. Nothing ever seems truly organic. For OutKast, this has never been the case. There has rarely been a moment in Kast's career that seemed rehearsed.
Every album bursts with spontaneity and videos broke new ground, effortlessly. André and Big Boi are masters of growing with their art. They've never tried to recapture the energy or tone of a past album. ATLiens sounds nothing like Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. Stankonia sounds nothing like Aquemini. Every album plays out as a chapter in the book of OutKast, giving a detailed and visual description of their lives at that moment and time.
While other artists find themselves competing with their own projects, as well as other artists', André and Big Boi simply used each album as a building block for the next stage of their careers.
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10.
I'm really the opposite of that. I swear to God. I'm the dude that could be from the same neighborhood or block as any other rapper, live across the street in the projects and all that shit. But I just got imagination. And that's it. It's nothing more and nothing less. - André, on how he feels about people perceiving him as "artsy fartsy."
As he famously said on the "Throw Some D's" remix, André "ain't a hood nigga, but a nigga from the hood." Yet over the years, critics have tried to diminish OutKast's credibility in hip-hop and ostracize them from the culture they contributed so heavily to. From as far back as the ATLiens era, André's art has been scrutinized for every reason expect for the art itself.
Fans and critics raised eyebrows when André cut off his braids and started donning a turban, and they haven't truly dropped their brows yet. Maybe this is one of the reasons that, despite the fact that they've released some of the greatest pieces of work music has ever seen, OutKast is kept out of many "greatest rapper," "best emcee," "top five dead or alive lists."
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