Outkast Went Platinum Having Fun, Not Under Pressure

There’s a podcast I like. It’s called the Broken Record Podcast and they are all great, but none is better than the first. Super juggernaut producer, Rick Rubin, sits down with Andre 3000 of Outkast. 

Part of what I love about the podcast episodes with Rick as the interviewer is that all the guests are shamelessly amazed to be talking to the renown producer. He’s not just one of the best producers to live, he’s a living Zen-like master. It’s common for guests to just start asking Rick questions because they’re so enamored with him. 

This episode is so remarkable because there’s a moment where Rick breaks Andre 3000’s brain live in the interview. For context, since his multi-platinum explosion into music with Oukast, Andre 3000 (who sometimes can be seen wandering around Venice/DEUCE playing the flute) admittedly struggles to make and perform music as Andre 3000. 

Rick probed him on this by acknowledging the pressure of being one of the greatest in hip hop walking into a studio and having to strike gold again with his creativity. Rick knew exactly what he was doing when he asked his next question:

“Well, what was it like when you made music in the beginning?,” Rick Rubin inquired. 

Andre replied, “We were just teenagers having fun in the basement. It was carefree..”

Rick Rubin was smart enough to let his silence do the teaching. And, you could feel the palpable shift happening for Andre. He knew that he was trying to make music with white knuckles and that his success came when he was having fun. 

The lesson here is that sometimes the environment we’re in once we’re successful isn’t the same environment that got us there. The key is to find the seem obvious, but rather the environments that work.