• 1993-2014

  Andre "Andre 3000" Benjamin

  Antwan "Big Boi" Patton
• Outkast formed their own boutique label called Aquemini, which is the combination of Big Boi and Andre 3000's zodiac signs. Aquemini would also serve as the title for Outkast's third album.
• Outkast are a favorite among Grammy voters: They've won awards for various songs and albums, including Best Rap Album, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group and Album of the Year.
• In 1993, "Player's Ball," Outkast's debut single, went straight to #1 on the Billboard rap singles chart and stayed there for six weeks.
• Early in their career, Oukast were out to change the perception of hip-hop culture. Andre 3000 explained, "When I look at the rap videos, it's pretty much the same video over and over, a bunch of women in swimsuits and the guys rapping about money or jewels. Me and Big Boi wanted to change that."
• Outkast crossed over in a big way with their fourth album, 2000's Stankonia. The album contains the #1 hit "Ms. Jackson," which deals with the end of Andre 3000's relationship with singer Erykah Badu.
• Both Andre 3000 and Big Boi realize that their music reaches people in very different ways. Big Boi recounted meeting a fan after a concert and hearing his story. "He told me he listened to Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik's 'Git Up, Git Out' every morning, and that would get him out of the crib so he could go to class," Patton recalled. "He said it helped him graduate from college. That makes me feel good, that we're touching people by just being ourselves and telling our own story."
• Their 2003 double album Speakerboxx/The Love Below was really two solo albums, with Speakerboxx from Big Boi and The Love Below from Andre. Remarkably, each album had a #1 hit: "The Way You Move" from Speakerboxx and "Hey Ya" on The Love Below.
• Andre was raised in Atlanta, Georgia, by Sharon Benjamin, a single mother who sold real estate. She later married Pastor Robert Hodo of the New Morning Light Missionary Baptist Church in Conley, Georgia, where she founded The Starlight Camp for underprivileged children. Andre's mom was found dead in her Atlanta home on May 27, 2013 on what was her son's 38th birthday.
• The single "Rosa Parks" from the album Aquemini features a harmonica solo from Andre's stepfather, Pastor Robert Hodo.
• Why Big Boi? Antwan "Big Boi" Patton explained to Q magazine: "The girls just started calling me Big Boi. I'd been doing a lot of push-ups so I've always been that brawny-type guy, so it stuck."
• Andre 3000 is a multi-talented musician who is proficient in a variety of instruments. In 2023, he released an album of flute music called New Blue Sun.
• Andre 3000 was a vegan from about 1991 to 2014. Why'd he quit? "Socially it became horrible," he told Esquire. "I was kind of just sitting at home eating a salad. You become mean. That's not good for you."
• Outkast made six albums, starting with their 1994 debut Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik and ending with Idlewild in 2006. They never officially broke up but don't seem very interested in making another album. They did tour in 2014 but didn't put out any new music.

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