How Q-Tip inspired André 3000’s first rap name
André 3000 wasn’t always known by that name. The boy born André Lauren Benjamin once performed under the simple name of Dré, but he had to change that to differentiate himself from the much more famous Dr Dre. But that wasn’t the only moniker he tried out while he was a kid.
When André first started rapping, he did so under the name of “Jahz.” Speaking to Highsnobiety in 2024, he explained how he landed on that—it came down, basically, to his love of A Tribe Called Quest and its leader Q-Tip.
“My first rap name was Jahz because of Q-Tip,” André revealed. “We were huge A Tribe Called Quest fans. In high school, they were the pinnacle—them, Grand Puba, Souls of Mischief. I don’t think Q-Tip gets enough credit for introducing a generation of kids to a forgotten music.”
What he meant by “a forgotten music” was jazz, which, of course, Dré has been experimenting with more explicitly in recent years. “As a kid, jazz music meant some old-people shit that’s in elevators,” he remarked to Highsnobiety. “Q-Tip found a way to make it actually cool.”
Dré went on to draw a connection between the jazz musicians of yore and the later hip-hop generation, noting that a similar thread of experimentation ran through them both. “The jazz guys were actually the rap guys of that time. They were doing heroin, they were in clubs. Years from now, people are going to listen to trap music and think, ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ It happens. It happens.”
This conversation with Highsnobiety was not the first time that André has spoken about his love for Tribe. He actually gave a speech at Phife Dawg’s funeral in 2016, during which he told the attendees about his first rap name and his admiration for the group.
“It was J-H-A-Z,” he said. “I don’t know how I was thinking I was spelling that shit.” That received a laugh from the attendees. “Because of ‘Jazz (We’ve Got).’ We would sit in high school and be like, ‘Man, we love them.’”
At one point during his speech, Dré pointed towards Tip and said, “This dude taught me what kind of rapper I wanted to be. My first rap, I remember it now, it was, ‘Young and naive / Alive I keep the dream / Writin’ funky lyrics at the age of 16.’ I wrote it because of you. I didn’t even know what the word naive meant.”
The way Dré spoke about it, it seems that A Tribe Called Quest had an educational impact on him when he was a kid. “Q-Tip taught me words,” he noted. “‘Elation.’ I’m sitting in high school like, ‘Damn I gotta look this shit up.’ ‘I’m filled with elation.’ Ohhhhh, okay. We can use these words too? We can be smart? Yeah, man. He gave me fuel.”