📍East Point, GA, USA
1975 – 1994“André Lauren Benjamin was born in Atlanta in May 1975, the only child of Sharon Benjamin, a real estate agent, and Lawrence Harvey Walker, a collections agent. His single mother raised him in different parts of Atlanta, including East Point, a working-class city on the south-west side, and the wealthier Buckhead district, and he went to a series of schools there. He was a creative, sensitive boy who loved drawing and art, and in seventh grade at Sutton Middle School he joined the drama club, the Ritz Players, and played Avery in Charlotte's Web. In 1992, at sixteen, he met Antwan Patton, later Big Boi, at the Lenox Square mall, and they found they both lived in East Point and went to Tri-Cities High School, a magnet school for the performing arts. They bonded over rap battles and their love of music, and they formed a duo they called OutKast, because they dressed and thought differently from their classmates. They joined a group of young Atlanta musicians and producers called the Dungeon Family, who recorded in a red-clay basement studio at the home of the producer Rico Wade, and André left school to pursue music, though he later earned his GED. In 1994 OutKast released Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, which helped put Atlanta on the hip-hop map, and at the 1995 Source Awards André declared that the South got something to say. Their album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below won the Grammy Award for album of the year, and Hey Ya! became a worldwide hit. In 2023 he released New Blue Sun, an album of flute music, and he remains proud of East Point.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today