It isn’t just the fans who are excited to see OutKast reunite at this year’s Hangout Music Festival — other rappers are stoked too!
Wiz Khalifa will have to prep his own set for the three-day beach blast in Gulf Shores, Alabama, but the Taylor Gang captain will certainly find the time to watch Andre 3000 and Big Boi hit the stage as well.
“I never got a chance to see OutKast live, ever,” Khalifa told MTV News. “It’s real good to see those two working together, providing this experience for fans and people who have been wanting to see them for years and years and years. It was bound to happen.”
After a hiatus that lasted more than a decade — OutKast didn’t tour for their last album, 2003’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below) — the ATLiens announced that they would be performing together at over 40 festivals this year.
Hangout Fest will take place on the beach in Alabama from May 16 to May 18 and feature performances from not only OutKast and Wiz, but the Black Keys, the Killers, the Flaming Lips, Chance the Rapper and Jack Johnson, among many other acts.
Wiz was just a child when ‘Kast dropped their debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, in 1994, but he remembers bonding over the group’s music with his mother.
“My favorite memories of OutKast definitely come from my mom because she played so much of their music. It wasn’t like they were old to me, because they were hella relevant, but my mom loved OutKast as much as I did,” he said. “It tripped me out because we shared that CD, we shared a lot of CDs, but that was one of her favorite ones.”
Khalifa even credits the group with helping him stretch artistically. When OutKast first came out, they fit right in with rap’s 1990s aesthetic: They rapped over sample-heavy beats and wore sports jerseys and Air Jordan sneakers. With each album release, though, OutKast started to push the envelope sonically and visually. In the group’s 1998 video for “Rosa Parks,” Andre wore a pair of pom-pom pants and football shoulder pads, a move that could’ve very well have influenced young Khalifa to eventually express his own hip-hop individuality.
“Even when they started elevating their minds and doing other things she was a part of that movement, so in turn it helped me to grow with it too,” he said.
No Comments