#ThrowbackThursday: “Ms. Jackson” by OutKast

By Sean Smith

After spending nearly seven years working on seprate/individual projects, ATLiens Big Boi and Andre 3000 will be reuniting on stage as Outkast in 2014 for about 40 concert dates. It all begins this April when the Atlanta based rappers will headline the  popular Coachella Valley Music and Art Festival in Indio, California.

The duo has been on a hiatus since their 2006 work Idlewild, which was technically the soundtrack to a musical film that the two starred in by the same name. Since then,  Big Boi has released two solo albums of his own and Andre 3000 has made a number of guest appearances on other artists songs, and portrayed Jimi Hendrix in a film called All Is By My Side, which premiered at last year’s Toronto Film Festival. In a recent interview with Diddy’s Revolt TV, Big Boi said that the reunion was “for the fans” and is in celebration of their 20 year career’s in the industry. Their debut album Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik was released on Laface Records 20 years ago in 1994.

Outkast gained notoriety right from the start with their debut single “Player’s Ball” which peaked at the #37 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. The song, and the album as a whole, served to many as an introduction to southern hip hop on a nationwide scale. This notoriety was reinforced with their second and third album releases ATLiens and Aquemini, the latter of which spawned their 1998 hit “Rosa Parks.”  But for this week’s #ThrowbackThursday post here on Clizbeats, we remember the second single from the Atlanta duo’s 2001 album Stankonia, “Ms. Jackson.”

“Ms. Jackson” is song about the rocky relationship between a man and the the mother of his child’s mother. The song is commonly believed to be about Andre 3000’s relationship with Erykah Badu’s mother, but Badu disputes that notion. In an interview in the June 2010 issue of Vibe magazine, Badu said that she had a sixth grade teacher named Ms. Jackson, and that the song was probably about her. I’ll leave you to decide which is more likely.

Regardless of the song’s origins, “Ms. Jackson” became a hit for Outkast. It went on to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart and earned the duo a Grammy in 2002 for Best Rap Performance for a Duo or Group. The success of the  single also helped the album Stankonia reach the second spot on the Billboard 200 album chart, and won the group another 2002 Grammy for Best Rap Album.

And so, in celebration of the news that Andre 3000 and Big Boi are resurrecting Outkast for a slew of performances this year starting at Coachella in April, we give you this week’s edition of #ThrowbackThursday, Outkast’s 2001 smash hit “Ms. Jackson.” Enjoy!

Outkast

“Ms Jackson” 

From Stankonia

LaFace/Arista Records