OutKast was my favorite rap group growing up. The contrast between Big Boi and André 3000 was remarkable, and it still is. Two completely individual people making something neither could have made quite the same way alone.

That is what I want to celebrate. Not a reunion rumor. Not a complaint that either artist has wandered too far from the version we first fell in love with.

Big Boi’s official site lists June 2026 appearances on Kid Cudi’s Rebel Ragers tour alongside the solo music and OutKast records. Follow “Kill Jill” into the catalog, then put Aquemini or Stankonia back on. There is room for the individual and the partnership in the same afternoon.

André has been following a very different impulse. In MUBI’s conversation about 7 Piano Sketches and the Graham Mason-directed film connected to it, he discusses years of informal piano recordings, including ideas shared with friends. It follows the instrumental exploration of New Blue Sun, released in 2023.

I find that willingness to begin again interesting. An artist does not owe us the same record forever, even when the old ones have become part of our lives.

OutKast made individuality feel like a strength, not a problem somebody needed to fix. The clothes, the voices, the ideas, the nerve to try something wildly different—all of it mattered.

One of the best rap groups to ever do it? Absolutely. And the best way to appreciate that history is to keep listening to both people who made it.

OutKast archival photograph via the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Image source and credits.

Written by Chetuno