With this year’s award season, almost to its end we have yet to await the music’s industry most prestigious night of honors and exhilarating performances at the Grammy’s. This year’s contenders for the covenant award of Album of the Year vary from all sorts of genres from hip-hop to soulful pop. As with most award shows, it is always nostalgic to look back at some of award show’s big firsts. Back in 2003 we were first introduced to OutKast’s insanely, catchy hit “Hey Ya” which easily became the most played song of that year and decade. Hits like “Hey Ya”, “Roses”, and “The Way You Move” came from the group’s fifth studio album which kicked off this hip-hop act from Atlanta into a large amount of success. It went on to top the charts and soon after Speakerboxxxx/The Love Below went on to win a Grammy for Album of Year at its 46th Annual award ceremony on February 8, 2004. Although Miss Hill had previously won Album of the Year in 1999 for her solo hip-hop album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, OutKast was the first hip-hop group to ever win in this category.
Amongst other strong contenders competing in that same category that year were Justin Timberlake and The White Stripes. Behind Beyoncé they were the second biggest winners of the night and took home three awards out of their six nominations. To this day “Hey Ya” has remained to be their most commercially successful song and is well regard for its strong influence in genres like funk and rock. Other hits off this album, similarly, reached at least the top five in the US Billboard charts and since then Speakerboxxxx/The Love Below has been certified diamond by the RIAA.
Following up the success of this album, the hip-hop duo went on to release Idlewild in 2006 which was their last release before taking a hiatus. Since then they only have only reunited back in 2014 to do shows at respectable festivals such as Lollapalooza and Coachella as well as in their hometown of Atlanta. Rumors of the duo working on any new material have been heavily denied over the years. Although there is no telling when we will ever get a follow up to the ridiculously successful Speakerboxxxx/The Love Below we can rest assure it still an album to have on replay.
