Outkast: Men of the year 2004

"TWO GREAT TASTES THAT GO GREAT TOGETHER."

OutKast had 2004 wrapped up before the year even started. Already on the short list of greatest rap groups of all time, Atlanta’s Andre “3000” Benjamin and Antwan “Big Boi” Patton were in midascent to total pop culture dominance when the calendar flipped. Released late 2003, their bold, double-disc opus Speakerboxxx/The Love Below was on its way to selling over five million copies (earning just the third diamond plaque the RIAA has ever bestowed upon a hip-hop album), while their twin tower singles—“Hey Ya!” and “The Way You Move”—held the top two spots on Billboard’s pop charts for eight weeks running. When “Hey Ya!” finally dropped from No. 1, in February, “The Way You Move” replaced it. That same month, at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, they took three trophies, including the big one, Album of the Year.

It was all the result of a novel production process. Andre, bored with a rap game he’d been pushing the boundaries of for years, wanted to make another kind of music. Big Boi, always the duo’s tether to the streets, wanted to keep it hip-hop. So they recorded separate albums—Andre’s The Love Below, an eclectic collection of purple-funk love ballads and genre-melting hummables, like “Hey Ya!,” and Big Boi’s Speakerboxxx, a hood-certified juke joint full of monstrous 808s, state-of-the-art rhyming and smooth, brass-backed come-ons, like “The Way You Move”—and released them as one under the OutKast rubric. Together, they cast an awfully wide net. Pitched an awfully big tent. OutKast became that rare phenomenon in pop music—the act loved by everyone and their mothers. And everyone’s mothers’ dentists’ aunties’ plumbers. And... Anyway, XXL got the guys on the phone recently to learn what
that’s like.


XXL: What are your fondest memories from 2004?

Big Boi: The craziest was the back-to-back performances of “Hey Ya!” and “The Way You Move.” Whether it was on Leno or Letterman or the VH1 Awards, BET Awards or MTV—whatever it was—it was just back-to-back. At one point, we was running from one award show and going to the next one to perform. We were moving maybe nine to 10 pieces in each of our setups, to go change clothes and jump into your suit and go ahead and do it, man. It was a lot of fun.

How did it feel to lock down the Grammys?

Dre: Shit, man, that was amazing, to be honest with you. I mean, OutKast, we been around since ’94. But a lot of people, believe it or not, that was their first time hearing about OutKast. So a lot of people don’t even know that I rap, which is funny. To get that kind of award and have old OutKast fans be like, “Oh, y’all just now catching on?” You know, it’s kinda cool.

Big Boi: I flew like maybe 40 of my family members out there that never been out of Georgia—aunties, cousins, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandmama and everything. So to have my family and Dre’s family out there to enjoy it, and we win and celebrate after that, you can’t beat it. It was like a big-ass family reunion. I mean, the energy in the whole house, and when the music cut off and they announced “Album of the Year.” First rap group to win Album of the Year—period.

XXL: Were you surprised by how well your music was received by the mainstream?

Big Boi: Umm, yeah, I was. We didn’t know that the album was gonna be that big. Like, we put out the singles, and that shit just took off. We knew the music was good, but a double CD, two solid albums’ worth of two guys who’ve been in a group together just almost... What it did was just solidify that identity of Andre 3000 and Big Boi. Okay, cool. These niggas been in a supergroup since they was teenagers. Believe it.

Dre: I really was, because it wasn’t your everyday stuff. That sounded nothing like anything on the radio. It came at a great time, and I think people were just ready for something new. It was great timing, and it could’ve gone either way, and I’m just happy that it went this way.

XXL: Do you consider yourselves pioneers in the emergence of Southern rap music?

Dre: I feel like we’ve played a significant role in it. But it wasn’t just us. It was our whole Dungeon Family crew at the time. We were the first people to come out of the gate, but even with our first album, that was pretty much everybody involved. You had Goodie Mob on the album, you had Witchdoctor, Cool Breeze, Big Rube, Rico Wade. Even the name of the album at the time, Southernplayalisticadillacmusik, that was pretty much ushering in our Southern lifestyle at the time when L.A. and New York were reigning supreme.

Big Boi: That’s for the people to decide. We’re definitely on the fore-front, along with the Geto Boys, 2 Live Crew, UGK, 8Ball & MJG and those that came before us. But we definitely was holding the flag. How it is now is crazy to know that we was a part of that whole movement. 1996, bruh, they ain’t wanna hear our shit. But now, they can’t get it away from ’em.


XXL 10th Anniversary 2007
Septemeber Issue #95