OutKast have turned down astronomical amounts of money since they stopped touring consistently in the mid-2000s, according to Big Gipp.
In an interview with VladTV, the Goodie Mob rapper gave his perspective on why André 3000 retreated from performing after the Grammy-winning, diamond-certified success of 2003’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.
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Gipp also spoke about the lucrative opportunities the legendary Hip Hop duo must’ve turned down during their hiatus, estimating the figure to be as high as $100 million.
“What people don’t understand is when he did ‘Hey Ya,’ it put him into the stratosphere next to an artist like Lenny Kravitz,” he said of 3 Stacks. “Now, you in that Rock & Roll hierarchy. People are looking at you like, ‘Wow, you just went and damn near did some shit like The Beatles and put some rap shit on it!’
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“So, the industry was like, ‘Boy, if you give us 10 more of these hoes, whew!’ It was almost like coming from just being a famous rapper to now you in them Lenny Kravitz boots. It was like, ‘Oh, shit. This is a whole nother’ thing.'”
He continued: “So, all of the press that came along with him being able to turn into this artist, and having to take on the workload of having to be an artist at this stage, it made him be like, ‘Damn this shit.’
“That’s why it took him so long to go on stage and perform the album because it was so big at the time, bro. They probably turned down $100 million just on shows.”
While André 3000 and Big Boi are perhaps the only people who know exactly how much money they’ve missed out on, OutKast did turn down performing at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2015.
“We were supposed to perform at the Super Bowl,” Big Boi said on ESPN’s The Dan LeBatard Show at the time. “We had two songs, ‘The Way You Move’ and ‘Hey Ya,’ and Dre didn’t want to split the songs up. He didn’t want to cut the songs. He wanted to do both songs. They was like, ‘Y’all can’t do it.’”
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OutKast did reunite in 2014 for a 20th anniversary tour, which saw them perform at 40 festivals around the world. But in an interview with The FADER that year, André 3000 admitted he had reservations about hitting the road.
“I didn’t wanna do the tour,” he said. “We hadn’t performed in 10 years. It was old songs. I’m like, ‘How am I gonna present these songs? I don’t have nothing new to say.'”
Instead, 3 Stacks said he was more excited about the jumpsuits he wore on stage during the tour, each of which featured a unique slogan, ranging from powerful political and cultural statements to short yet cryptic phrases.
“So I was like, maybe I can start saying new stuff while doing these old songs,” he said of his onstage outfits. “It became a theme where I was more excited about this than the actual show. This is fun, running out in these.”
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On T.I.’s 2012 song “I’m Sorry,” the Atlanta rap icon famously apologized to Big Boi for repeatedly getting in the way of OutKast’s touring opportunities.
“And this the type of shit that’ll make you call your rap partner/ And say, ‘I’m sorry I’m awkward, my fault for fuckin’ up the tours’/ I hated all the attention so I ran from it,” he rapped.
