It starts with four simple guitar chords: G, C, D and E.
The first few lines could be plucked from almost any R&B song of the past 40 years: “My baby don’t mess around because she loves me so, and this I know fo’ shoooooo …”
So what boosted OutKast’s “Hey Ya!” to the No. 1 spot on multiple Billboard charts–the Hot 100, Mainstream Top 40–and near the top of several others?
Why would a tribute to commitment-free sex from a hip-hop duo be playing at a middle school dance or on a mother’s radio as she drops the kids off at Chuck-E-Cheese’s?
Maybe it’s the hand claps.
Maybe it’s the line, “Shake it like a Polaroid picture,” which could get William F. Buckley moving his rump–or at least Gen. Wesley Clark, who has been quoting “Hey Ya!” on the Democratic primary stump in pitches to young voters.
One thing, at least, is certain: The song is “catchy,” further evidence that pop music’s inspiration right now is flowing almost entirely from hip-hop and its musical spinoffs, and, perhaps, that the music is changing along with its audience.
“I cannot get that song out of my head,” says Natalie Cowen-Gonzalez, a corporate consultant in Houston. “My husband and I are as white-bread as they come and really don’t listen to hip-hop at all. But that song just puts a smile on your face.”
OutKast’s variety of hip-hop–inspired by life in Atlanta rather than New York or Los Angeles–has mostly skirted the stereotypes that frighten off mainstream listeners.
High school rap rivals turned bandmates, OutKast’s Andre 3000 and Big Boi arrived on the music scene in the mid-1990s with a Southern twang and funk-influenced sound that borrowed more from Parliament Funkadelic than from Run D.M.C.
Guns are rarely mentioned in their lyrics. There’s very little bragging about rap prowess. Marijuana and sex are common themes, but they are described in a fun-loving fashion.
More often, OutKast raps about the hazards of misuse and excess: failing a drug test and losing a job opportunity, late-night partying descending into a stupid knife fight, having kids when you’re way too young.
Andre says “Hey Ya!,” one of his songs on the group’s double album, “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below,” grew out of his boredom with the hip-hop genre. Although Big Boi sticks to rap, Andre can be found crooning, backed up by strings like Nat “King” Cole or, more often, preening like Prince.
“Hey Ya!” is bouncy, not heavy or oppressive. Yet there is darkness and pessimism lurking below “Hey Ya!’s” jubilant surface–nothing like the teeny-bopper sentiments that were popular a couple of years ago from the likes of Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. If he were still around, Ed Sullivan might be just as tempted to censor Andre’s song as he was the Stones’.
“Hey Ya!” argues that monogamy isn’t only impossible, it’s unnatural and illogical. Andre insists he is just being honest.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
