Why André 3000 was “terrified” about Outkast releasing ‘Hey Ya!’
‘Hey Ya!’ is one of the biggest singles of Outkast’s career, but it wasn’t a no-brainer for André 3000 to include it on Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. The 2003 record saw Big Boi and 3 Stacks stepping outside the box, opting for a catchier sound than what the hip-hop world was used to.
3000 was afraid to sing, and that nervousness crept into the song’s first performance. Despite apprehension from himself and former Arista Records CEO LA Reid, they went through with the decision to make it a single.
“I was completely terrified because it’s even worse because I’m coming from a rap world and everybody got they face frowned up and wanna be as tough as possible and you out there singing,” he told HipHopDX. “The first ‘Hey Ya’ performance wasn’t that great. It was nerves. It was scary.”
He continued, “Even when I presented the song to LA Reid to say, ‘Hey, this is the single,’ his response was, ‘To be honest, I don’t understand this song, but it’s exciting to me.’ So he stood by it and watched it happen. I’m glad he did. But there are nerves. I think you’ve gotta have some nerves. I think if you’re too comfortable with things, you really ain’t pushing nothing. You gotta stretch it out.”
‘Hey Ya!‘ was a commercial success, peaking at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number three in the UK Singles Chart. Another song on their Speakerboxxx/The Love Below album, ‘The Way You Move’ with Sleepy Brown, also reached number one, with ‘Roses’ peaking at number nine.
3000, who played Jim Hendrix in the 2013 biopic Jimi: All Is by My Side, recognised similar tendencies between himself and the legendary guitarist. “You are nervous,” he said. “I think Hendrix was nervous a bit, too. I think you’ve gotta be nervous in some kind of way because that drives it because it gives you the challenge to do it at that point. You know if it’s some kind of friction then that means that it’s good.
“Even when you read interviews about The Experience, they would always say, ‘We honestly did not rehearse a whole lot, because our biggest thing was we had balls, man. We would just go out and play and just do stuff.’ So that was kind of like addressing that Hendrix part.”
Before ‘Hey Ya!’ got its title, it had a completely different name. “The song went through several working titles,” 3000 told HuffPost. “’Thank God for Mom and Dad’ was one of them. [‘Hey Ya!’] was actually the oldest one on the album because I had started writing it during the Stankonia tour. The song isn’t autobiographical, it’s more like fantasies or tangents based on real life. Moments from my life spark a thought when I’m writing.”
3000 once revealed that the first guitar chords he ever played became ‘Hey Ya!’ Speaking to GQ, he said, “I never totally dedicated myself to anything. I’ve always been a jack-of-no-trades, but just making it happen: You know, play guitar just enough to play on The Love Below. Play piano just enough to do ‘Ms. Jackson.’ My first chords were ‘Hey Ya!'”