Actor

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André Lauren Benjamin (born May 27, 1975), known professionally as André 3000, is an American rapper, singer, record producer and actor. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, he is one half of the hip-hop duo Outkast along with rapper Big Boi, which they formed in 1992. Often recognized for his early use of rap-singing, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time. In 2025, Benjamin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Outkast.

As part of Outkast, the duo's six studio albums were each met with critical and commercial success, spawning hit singles including "Ms. Jackson", "Roses", "So Fresh, So Clean", and "Elevators (Me & You)", among others. Their fifth, a double album titled Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003), contained a solo single performed by Benjamin: "Hey Ya!", which peaked atop the Billboard Hot 100 and won Best Urban/Alternative Performance at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards. After the duo split in 2007, Benjamin became less active as a solo act compared to Big Boi, although he made several highly acclaimed guest appearances on releases by other artists; such activity has earned him an additional three Grammy Awards—from eight nominations—as a solo act. Benjamin signed with Epic Records to release his debut studio album, New Blue Sun (2023), an instrumental recording showcasing his performances on flute. It was nominated for the Album of the Year at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards, his first solo nomination and third overall in the category after Stankonia (2000) and Speakerboxxx/The Love Below with Outkast, the latter of which won the award.

Outside of music, Benjamin has acted in films and television series such as Families, The Shield, Be Cool, Revolver, Class of 3000, Semi-Pro, High Life, Four Brothers, and in the lead role of Jimi Hendrix in All Is by My Side. He played Fredwynn on the AMC series Dispatches from Elsewhere, and was featured in the 2022 adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel White Noise.

Early life

André Lauren Benjamin was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 27, 1975, the only child of real estate agent Sharon Benjamin and collections agent Lawrence Harvey Walker. His single mother raised him in Atlanta, East Point, and Buckhead, where he attended Sarah Smith Elementary School, Sutton Middle School, Northside High School, McClarin Success Academy, and Tri-Cities High School.

At Sutton Middle School, Benjamin was a member of the Ritz Players, a drama club. It was in 7th grade that he first took the stage as an actor, portraying the character Avery in the club's performance of Charlotte's Web.

Musical career

1992–1998: Beginnings with Outkast

In high school, Benjamin (who was then performing as Dré) met Antwan "Big Boi" Patton in 1992 at the Lenox Square shopping mall when they were both 16 years old. Benjamin and Patton, also attending the same high school, teamed up to form Outkast, named because the two had more unique tastes in fashion than their classmates. The duo was originally known as 2 Shades Deep, but changed it to Outkast because another local singing group was named 4 Shades Deep. Benjamin originally used the stage name of Black Wolf, inspired by blues musician Howlin' Wolf.

Shortly after graduating, Outkast was signed to the Atlanta-based record label LaFace and released their debut studio album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, in 1994. Buoyed by the success of the single "Player's Ball" the previous year, the album was certified platinum by the RIAA the same year, and Outkast was named "Best New Rap Group of the Year" at the 1995 Source Awards. With the success of their debut album, LaFace gave them more creative control to conceptualize their second studio album, ATLiens (1996). The period marked a radical shift for Benjamin, in which after visiting Jamaica, he abandoned his cornrows in favor of a more natural look, adopted a more eccentric fashion sense, became a vegetarian, and stopped smoking marijuana. With the album releasing in August 1996, it embraced a laid-back, spacey production sound, climbing to number three on the Billboard 200 with more than 350,000 units in its first two weeks of release. The album gave them more recognition from East Coast hip-hop fans.

On their next two albums, ATLiens (1996) and Aquemini (1998), Outkast experimented with their sound by adding elements of trip hop, soul, and jungle. The albums were also influenced by a return to traditional black music genres, with funk being the most prominent example. Outkast's style and lyricism again received commercial and critical acclaim. With the duo's portrayal of themselves as out-of-place extraterrestrials in ATLiens, Benjamin's lyrics, in particular, were noted for their surreal, space-age tinge: "the funkadelic, futuristic, and seemingly unfamiliar, weird, or eccentric persona projected by André 3000 creates the chance to transcend the more pronounced characterizations of gangstas and pimps so regularly assumed by black men rap artists." During the recording of these albums, Benjamin took up guitar, painting, and a relationship with singer Erykah Badu.

2000–2006: Mainstream expansion with OutKast

Outkast's fourth album, Stankonia (2000), introduced Benjamin's new alias André 3000 (largely to distinguish himself from Dr. Dre and to announce a new persona following his split with Badu) and increased the group's crossover appeal with the single "Ms. Jackson", which hit on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was written in the aftermath of Benjamin's breakup with Badu and was a fictionalized account of the disintegration of their relationship. In 2002, Outkast released a greatest hits album, Big Boi and Dre Present... OutKast, which contained three new tracks, one of which, "The Whole World", won a Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Later that year, Benjamin participated in the Dungeon Family group album, which saw some prominent Atlanta-based hip-hop groups combine into a supergroup. In 2002, André 3000 was referenced on the song "Till I Collapse" by Eminem, who considered him one of the greatest rappers of all time.

In 2003 Outkast released Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, a double album that highlighted the differences in the musical styles of the group's two members. Though Big Boi's half of the album, Speakerboxxx, spawned the number-one hit "The Way You Move" and the relatively successful "Ghetto Musick", Benjamin's The Love Below garnered the most attention from mainstream audiences, with the popular singles "Hey Ya!" and "Roses" and their music videos receiving heavy radio and television airtime. "Prototype", the album's fourth single and video (Benjamin's third), was released shortly after. Unlike Speakerboxxx, The Love Below is an exercise in funk, jazz, and alternative music, featuring vocals from Benjamin which are mostly sung instead of rapped. Rolling Stone compared Benjamin to "an indie-rock Little Richard" on "Hey Ya!" and later declared the international hit one of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

In 2006, Outkast released their sixth album as a group, Idlewild, which also served as a soundtrack to the group's musical film Idlewild. The film depicts life in a 1930s setting and the album takes influences from the music of that era, particularly blues. Benjamin had a few rapped verses on the album, including on the first single "Mighty O", but mostly stuck with singing, as he had on The Love Below. The album postponed the release of the theatrical film, as Benjamin and Patton were concentrated more on the production of the music than the movie. In an interview with Billboard in 2006, Benjamin explained that Outkast and its associates had developed the idea of creating a movie before the release of Aquemini, so that when it finally came time to collaborate on the movie, they already had most of the details worked out, including a script, and the movie was ultimately finished before the album was.

2007–2011: Solo career

Benjamin returned to rapping in…