André 3000
(Outkast)
André 3000 is one half of OutKast, the duo that turned hip-hop’s attention toward the South in the mid-1990s and marked Atlanta as an epicenter of musical innovation. OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below won Album of the Year at the 2004 Grammy Awards and carries a 13x Platinum certification from 2023, and its single “Hey Ya!,” certified 10x Platinum in 2024, is tenth on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2021). André 3000 has won nine Grammy Awards in all, and his solo album New Blue Sun was nominated for Album of the Year in 2025. OutKast entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2025, in the first year it was nominated.
OutKast is the duo of André “3000” Benjamin and Big Boi, both from Atlanta. Their “Player’s Ball” (1993) became a number one hip-hop hit and turned gold in 1994, and their debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, followed in 1994, when both were still teenagers; it went gold the next year.
ATLiens, a 2x Platinum album since 2003, and Aquemini (1998), certified 3x Platinum in 2023, came next, and Stankonia (2000), the duo’s fourth studio album, featured Gangsta Boo, Erykah Badu, and Killer Mike and produced “So Fresh, So Clean” and “Ms. Jackson,” an 8x Platinum single since 2024. With Killer Mike, OutKast won a Grammy in 2003 for “The Whole World.” The double album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003) paired a solo disc from each member, and each delivered a number one hit; at the 2004 Grammys it also won Best Rap Album, and “Hey Ya!” won Best Urban/Alternative Performance. Idlewild went gold in 2006. In 2007 André 3000 launched a solo career, contributing verses to hits by Beyoncé, Drake, Frank Ocean, John Legend, and Jay-Z, and he voiced Sunny Bridges in Class of 3000, an animated series on Cartoon Network. He won a Grammy in 2020 for “Come Home” with Anderson .Paak and two in 2024 for “Scientists & Engineers” with Killer Mike, Future, and Eryn Allen Kane, and New Blue Sun was also nominated for Best Alternative Jazz Album.
OutKast has won six Grammy Awards from 16 nominations. Aquemini sits at 49 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2020), Stankonia takes second place and Aquemini 27th on its 200 Greatest Hip-Hop Albums of All Time (2022), and “B.O.B.” comes in at 39 on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2021).
OutKast’s official store now carries an ATLiens 30th-anniversary collection, Stankonia anniversary apparel, and a 20th-anniversary vinyl edition of Idlewild, and André 3000’s own store, A Myriad of Pyramids, carries New Blue Sun, 7 Piano Sketches, and Moving Day.
