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Hip Hop Legend: Andre 3000!
Monday 20th May 2013 | Alex
Maybe he’s an unusual choice; we’ve been picking real old-school heavyweights until now – KRS-One-type-titans. Andre’s a wicked MC and everyone knows that. He’s more than that though, he’s proof you can unite eccentricity with consistency.
One half of the mighty ‘Outkast’, Andre’s debut on 1994’s ‘Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik’ was precise, sauntering and immersive. Bit of a mental album title but, believe it or not, this was the Andre at his most regular – the pre-Stankonia Andre, the ‘before he started calling himself Possum Aloysius Jenkins’ Andre.
From here it was a descent into expansive psychedelic funk and hyper-gospel, and that’s what makes Jenkins’ journey such a legendary one. Propelled by lead single ‘Hey Ya’, 2003’s ‘Speakerboxxx/The Love Below’ went diamond – it’s actually the best selling hip hop (can we call it that?) album of all time. He’s a legend not because of his record sales, but because of his demonstration that you can hit massive sales without compromising artistic vision. The wackier he got the more captivating his music became. He didn’t ‘go mainstream’, at least, not in the usual way, but Andre doesn’t do usual.
He’s still about, 20 years on. He had a wicked feature on T.I’s ‘Sorry’ recently; dare we speculate that a further Outkast album is in the pipeline? The duo hit London to promote the last few... There’s no evidence, but that won’t stop the buzz.
Check out this half of the ‘Kast at his best here:
Written by Alex Dean - @AlexDean94
