OutKast: music's favorite odd couple breaks the hip-hop mold

Jet, Feb 2, 2004 by Marti Yarbrough

OutKast, one of hip-hop's greatest rap duos ever, is presenting by far the riskiest material that the group has released in its 10-year career. The sixth and newest project Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is a double CD, which features each member as a solo act displaying two distinctly different styles of music.

Antwan "Big Boi" Patton is often called the gangster of the group, and his partner in rhyme, Dre "Andre 3000" Benjamin is sometimes referred to as the eccentric one. Together as rap music's favorite odd couple they have put Atlanta on the map and have changed the notions of what hip-hop music is supposed to be.

But why separate CDs this time around?

We were both working on music and it just worked out that way," Big Boi tells JET during a phone interview from Michigan. He admits that the two haven't been in the studio together totally from beginning to end since their third CD Aquemini. "We're like two cooks in the kitchen. We still come together and kind of map it out but it's pretty much self-contained on both sides."

Big Boi's 19-track CD Speakerboxxx showcases the clever and witty lyrical skills that he consistently brings over beats dripping with funk, soul and rock influences. While keeping with more of a traditional OutKast sound, Big Boi pays homage to the Roland 808 rhythm machine by delivering hard trunk rattlin'" bass lines throughout the CD.

"Basically Speakerboxxx is my voice to the world," says the 28-year-old Savannah native. "The name has two meanings; the first one comes from the larynx, the voice box. The second was that I wanted to deal with a lot of Southern music. You know we like that bass which resonates at the low end of the speaker."

The Love Below, Dre's CD, which has hardly any rapping at all, reveals another side to his creativity. He keeps a steady theme about the twists and turns of love and lust while crooning over loosely autobiographical tunes compiled of jazz, funk, pop and rack rhythms.

Dre's portion of the packaged deal was originally written as a soundtrack to an independent film he co-wrote and plans to star in also titled The Love Below.

"It was an experiment, so it was fun for me and it was personal at the same time," says Dre, 28, who talked with JET from NYC. "Originally it wasn't supposed to be catered to the OutKast fan. It wasn't supposed to be the package that I delivered because people know me for rhyming. The movie was a love story so these songs made sense."

These songs obviously made sense to more than 3.6 million fans who have purchased Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below since it hit stores on September 23 of last year. The timing was close, but the group just made the Grammy eligibility deadline of September 30, 2003.

The highly acclaimed CD, which features the hit singles I Love The Way You Move and Hey Ya!, has been nominated for a total of six Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

The accolades don't stop there. OutKast has also been nominated for a sweeping six NAACP Image Awards. The first released singles are up for Outstanding Duo or Group, Music Video, Song and Album.

When Dre's Hey Ya! recently landed the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and Big Boi's I Love The Way You Move climbed to the top of the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles, OutKast made Billboard Monitor history. The duo was the first to have two different songs by the same group hold No. positions on two separate charts.

The musical styles that both members display are unmistakably diverse, but Big Boi and Dre insist that there is no battle over who makes it to the top of the charts.

"Both records are OutKast records. They're just from two different perspectives," says Big Boi. "There's never a competition. It would be like competing against yourself."

The self-proclaimed "coolest mother funkers on the planet," who say they were inspired by such groups as A Tribe Called Quest and the Brand Nubians, met while attending Tri-Cities High School in East Point, GA.

Big Boi and Dre originally called themselves 2 Shades Deep and later the Misfits. Both group names were changed because they were already taken. That's when the guys turned to the dictionary for help.

We tried to find a word that best described being apart," says Big Boi.

Dre adds, "We came across the word outcast and just kept the pronunciation key spelling of it."

In 1994 OutKast let it be known that two boys from the South not only had something to say, but also had the skills to prove it. The young rappers' hit single, Player's Ball, featured on LaFace Records' Christmas album A LaFace Family Christmas, won rave reviews and led them to become the label's first hip-hop act. Their platinum-selling debut Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, helped to lay a solid foundation for the current Southern hip-hop movement.

"I was impressed with the originality of their songs and their voices," Antonio 'L.A.' Reid, former president/CEO of both Arista Records and LaFace Records tells JET. "From the very beginning they were committed to bringing a fresh sound and fresh approach to hip hop."