The infamous group, Outkast, was made up of Andre Benjamin and Antwan Patton. Andre released the hit song “Hey Ya!” in 2003 as his first single on their album. Andre Benjamin started working on this song in 2002. One night he decided to start recording with an acoustic guitar. The person recording Andre’s session said, “We recorded the skeleton part, with the intro and the first verse and hook, all in one night” (Road to the Grammy’s: The Making of Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya!’). After a night, Andre wanted to get back to the song and make it even better. He invited Kevin Hendricks to join him. Kevin used a synthesizer for the bass part of the song to add something “old time” to the new version. The recorder of Andre’s song went on to explain how they experimented with lots of different tools to make the song sound the best. They tried many different types of microphones and effects to make the song be the most amazing version it could be.
‘Hey Ya!’ opens with three pick up beats. Andre counts off, “one, two three, oh” and the song goes into the first verse. Some of the song is sung on a vocoder and Andre did many takes, ranging from 30 to 40, for every line. This song ended up hitting the Top 100 for nine weeks, from December 13th 2003 to February 7th 2004. Personally, I think a song being in the Top 100 for over a year is crazy. Andre Benjamin wrote and produced one of the most iconic songs in the music industry. I cannot believe that it took him a short amount of time in order to get the song recorded and produced. Andre Benjamin shows his love and passion for music through this and I think this is an awesome story!
https://www.mtv.com/news/ynm2p0/road-to-the-grammys-the-making-of-outkasts-hey-ya