There’s nobody else quite like Andre 3000 in the musical sphere. He’s an enigma who is obsessive over the micro-details that most wouldn’t even pick up on. However, one person who can match him in the nerd stakes is Eminem.
Surprisingly, despite being friends, they’ve never worked together, but Slim Shady would like to change this, and working with Andre is high up on his agenda. In 2020, Eminem was asked about his dream collaboration and responded by saying, “Well, that’s an excellent answer, especially considering that today is André’s birthday.”
Both Eminem and Andre are a similar age. Therefore their gateway albums into music are almost identical. While they were in entirely different areas of the country, they had the same records on constant rotation during their respective formative periods.
While the Outkast co-founder, real name Andre Benjamin, grew up in Atlanta and eventually became the lynchpin of the thriving scene in the Southern rap capital. Meanwhile, Eminem took an alternative route to the top through battle-rapping, which led to him being discovered by Dr Dre.
In 2019, Andre appeared on Rick Rubin’s Broken Record podcast and revealed that the two of them used to listen to classic hip-hop albums while on the phone.
He made the revelation after the producer asked him about his biggest musical influences, to which Andre replied: “I’d have to say Tribe and Dogg Pound, Snoop and them. When you’re at that point of discovery as a kid and you’re seeing these new ways of doing things, these new ways of rapping… the way Hieroglyphics were rapping at the time was completely new… the bending of words.”
He continued: “Me and Eminem, we sat on the phone for about an hour talking about the Hieroglyphics crew,” he continued. “We were trading their lyrics on the phone like, ‘Do you remember, man?’
“They sparked so much, they opened up a new door for everybody. Just to be around that time… we were out when Wu was out. We were out when Nas was out. But we were from the South and we had to step up.”
In truth, Hieroglyphics aren’t perhaps given as much credit as they deserve. However, Eminem and Andre’s undying love of the group speaks for itself and shows just how crucial Del the Funky Homosapien and co. were for an entire family generation of hip-hop heads.
