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ANDRE 3000

Artist profile

André Lauren Benjamin a.k.a. Andre 3000

Born: May 27, 1975 in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.

“Everybody has an addiction, mines happens to be you”

Born in 1975 in Atlanta, Georgia, André 3000 began performing in his teens with a friend – Antwan “Big Boi” Patton as 2 Shades Deep. The pair got a record deal and changed their name to OutKast. Their first single, 1993’s “Players’ Ball,” was a Christmas song, and it stayed at No. 1 on the rap charts for six weeks. By the end of the decade, OutKast was a known quantity, and their single “Hey Ya!” cemented the group’s reputation. The song went on to be named one of Rolling Stone’s top 500 songs of all time, and OutKast collected six Grammy Awards along the way. Soon after, Andre 3000 began acting, appearing in several movies and on television, while also writing music for both. His latest effort is portraying Jimi Hendrix in the 2013 biopic All Is by My Side.

Andre 3000 OUTKAST

Born André Lauren Benjamin in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 27, 1975, André 3000 grew up being called “Dre” by his mother, who raised him by herself and sold real estate. He grew up in East Point and Buckhead, Georgia, and attended Willis A. Sutton Middle School and Tri-Cities High School for the Performing Arts, where his artistic leanings were encouraged. While at Tri-Cities, he met Antwan Patton, and the two quickly became rivals on the school’s rap scene. Just as quickly, though, the two realized that their shared love of music would bring them together, and they became lifelong friends.

When André began to rebel as a teenager, his mother sent him to live with his father, Lawrence Walker, but Walker couldn’t, or didn’t want to, curtail André’s rebellious streak, and André dropped out of high school during his junior year (he would later earn his GED).

Like most teenagers, André spent a lot of his time hanging around malls, but he and Patton used these locales as performance spaces, forming a musical duo called 2 Shades Deep, and rapping for throngs at shopping centers and in parking lots.

They soon managed to get introduced to Organized Noize, an Atlanta production trio, and André and Patton began hanging out in the trio’s studio with other Atlanta artists. Before long, their association with Organized Noize led to an audition with L.A. Reid, the co-founder of LaFace, an imprint of Arista Records. Reid was underwhelmed, so the duo went back to the studio and refined their sound, showing up on Reid’s doorstep once again when they were ready.

This time, Reid offered them a contract, but both young men were still minors, and their parents wouldn’t let them sign a contract, so they would have to wait a year to make it official.

The duo changed its name to OutKast and cut its first single, “Players’ Ball,” in 1993 for a compilation Christmas album. The song went gold and maintained the No. 1 spot on the rap charts for six weeks. In the spring of 1994, OutKast released its first album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, which landed at No. 20 on the Billboard chart and at No. 2 on the American R&B chart. The duo’s sound was labeled by some as being part of the new “Dirty South” Hip Hop, but skimming through any of their albums reveals songs that are not easily categorized.

Around this time, André made some changes to his lifestyle that would help redefine him as a person and as an entertainment figure: He gave up smoking and drinking and became a vegan, and he also began to dress in an eccentric way, all of which helped him gain fresh attention in the media and the public.

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In 1998, OutKast’s success came back to bite them, as their song “Rosa Parks,” ignited a lawsuit by Rosa Parks herself. (The suit was dismissed but Parks appealed in 2003.) Emerging from the scandal, OutKast released three more albums heading into the new millennium—ATLiens (1996), Aquimini (1998) and Stankonia (2000)—all of which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard chart.

In 1997, André and singer Erykah Badu had a son together and named him Seven (the couple would part ways soon after).

Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003) was the next album to appear, and it was unique in a couple of ways. First, each member of OutKast claimed one half of the record—The Love Below was André’s and Speakerboxxx was Big Boi’s (Patton’s adopted stage name). The other trait that set this record apart was that it was the first record that OutKast had put out to find its way to No. 1 on the Billboard chart. If that wasn’t enough, that same year, OutKast also hit No. 1 on the singles chart with “Hey Ya!” and “The Way You Move”—the former from The Love Below and the latter from Speakerboxxx—and the double album won a Grammy Award for album of the year. The infectiously popular song “Hey Ya!” was later named on Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list.

André next took on Hollywood, getting out from behind the mic and in front of the camera in the 2003 film Hollywood Homicide, starring Harrison Ford. Two years later he was back on the silver screen with four more films, including Be Cool and Four Brothers. He also joined Quentin Tarantino’s production company, A Band Apart, and wrote dozens of songs for movies and TV shows since 1995, from Soul Food, Any Given Sunday and 8 Mile, to Dancing with the Stars and The X Factor.

While he has appeared in several films and TV shows over the course of his career, his role as Jimi Hendrix in Oscar-winner John Ridley’s All Is by My Side (2014) marks his biggest on-screen performance to date. If André has proven anything in his diverse career, it’s that he’s always up for something new.

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Discography

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Movies

Sign the Show

Sign the Show

Sign The Show: Deaf Culture, Access and Entertainment is a feature-length documentary providing insight into Deaf culture and the quest for ...

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Be Cool

Be Cool

Disenchanted with the movie industry, Chili Palmer tries the music industry, meeting and romancing a widow of a music executive along the wa...

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Revolver

Revolver

Hotshot gambler Jake Green is long on bravado and seriously short of common sense. Rarely is he allowed in any casino because he's a bona fi...

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Four Brothers

Four Brothers

Four adopted brothers return to their Detroit hometown when their mother is murdered and vow to exact revenge on the killers....

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Semi-Pro

Semi-Pro

Jackie Moon is the owner, promoter, coach, and star player of the Flint Michigan Tropics of the American Basketball Association (ABA), the w...

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Charlotte's Web

Charlotte's Web

Wilbur the pig is scared of the end of the season, because he knows that come that time, he will end up on the dinner table. He hatches a pl...

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Battle in Seattle

Battle in Seattle

Thousands of activists arrive in Seattle, Washington in masses to protest the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 (World Trade Organization)....

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Idlewild

Idlewild

A reticent piano player Percival, along with Rooster, his flamboyant lead performer and manager, struggle to keep their speakeasy, in the Pr...

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Snoop Dogg's Buckwild Bus Tour

Snoop Dogg's Buckwild Bus Tour

Come along for a wild ride as Snoop Dogg hosts a real-life sneak peek at his life on the road! From the on-stage performances to music video...

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Atlantis

Atlantis

Set in Virginia Beach in the summer of 1977, the film pays homage to the neighborhood where Pharrell Williams grew up, and its Atlantis Apar...

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Volcano High [MTV's Rapper Dub]

Volcano High [MTV's Rapper Dub]

Redubbing of a Korean kung fu film with the use of hip-hop and celebrity voiceovers. A young man with spectacular kung fu abilities is prohi...

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Jimi: All Is by My Side

Jimi: All Is by My Side

A drama based on Jimi Hendrix's life as he left New York City for London, where his career took off....

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George Clinton: Tales of Dr Funkenstein

George Clinton: Tales of Dr Funkenstein

Don Letts's hilarious and colourful profile of the godfather of funk, whose 50-year career has defined the genre. From his 1950s days runnin...

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New Blue Sun (Listening)

New Blue Sun (Listening)

"I swear, I wanted to make a “visual album” but this is literally the way the wind blew me this time."...

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Where’s Usher?

Where’s Usher?

The road to Usher’s Super Bowl halftime performance continues. This time, Apple Music drops a new official film, Where’s Usher?, to prom...

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The Art of Organized Noize

The Art of Organized Noize

Organized Noize shaped the landscape of Hip Hop music with a distinct sound created in the confines of a dungeon. They're responsible for th...

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Hollywood Homicide

Hollywood Homicide

Joe Gavilan and his new partner K. C. Calden, are detectives on the beat in Tinseltown. Neither one of them really wants to be a cop, Gavila...

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High Life

High Life

A father and his daughter struggle to survive in deep space where they live in isolation....

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The After Party: The Last Party 3

The After Party: The Last Party 3

A documentary feature film about a cinematographer who is caught in a mass arrest. His film crew's videotape of the incident leads to a civi...

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And You Don't Stop: 30 Years of Hip-Hop

And You Don't Stop: 30 Years of Hip-Hop

The film documents the development of hip hop culture since its inception in the 1970s. With interviews from various figures in the communit...

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THE WIZRD

THE WIZRD

Future’s life on and off the stage comes into sharp focus in this revealing documentary. Director Marcus A. Clarke follows the East Atlant...

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Music Videos That Defined the 00’s

Music Videos That Defined the 00’s

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Dominique Belongs to Us

Dominique Belongs to Us

Before the basketball world came to know him as "The Human Highlight Film," a teenage Dominique Wilkins quickly became the toast of his new ...

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Showing Up

Showing Up

In the days leading up to a possibly career-changing exhibition, a sculptor navigates her relationships with family, friends, and colleagues...

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White Noise

White Noise

Jack Gladney, professor of Hitler studies at The-College-on-the-Hill, husband to Babette, and father to four children/stepchildren, is torn ...

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Soundz of Spirit

Soundz of Spirit

Award winning documentary by Joslyn Rose Lyons exploring the relationship between spiritual connection and the creative process in hip-hop m...

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Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told

Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told

A celebratory exploration of the boisterous times of Freaknik, the iconic Atlanta street party that drew hundreds of thousands of people in ...

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Katt Williams: The Pimp Chronicles Pt. 1

Katt Williams: The Pimp Chronicles Pt. 1

Comedian Katt Williams (aka Money Mike) showcases his laugh out loud comedic talents in his first ever HBO stand-up comedy DVD taped in fron...

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Idlewild

Idlewild

A reticent piano player Percival, along with Rooster, his flamboyant lead performer and manager, struggle to keep their speakeasy, in the Pr...

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Idlewild

Idlewild

A reticent piano player Percival, along with Rooster, his flamboyant lead performer and manager, struggle to keep their speakeasy, in the Pr...

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New Blue Sun (Listening)

New Blue Sun (Listening)

"I swear, I wanted to make a “visual album” but this is literally the way the wind blew me this time."...

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