OutKast's 'Speakerboxxx/The Love Below' wins Grammy Album of the Year
At the 46th Annual Grammys, OutKast becomes the second hip-hop act (after Lauryn Hill in 1999) to win Album of the Year. The double album — André 3000's *The Love Below* + Big Boi's *Speakerboxxx* — is by then the year's best-selling album, certified 11x platinum in the US. 'Hey Ya!' is in heavy rotation across every commercial radio format simultaneously.
Why it matters
OutKast's AOTY arrives nine years after the 1995 Source Awards line — 'the South got something to say' — that André 3000 had delivered into a hostile NYC audience. The Atlanta-rooted duo's commercial and critical capture of the Grammys' top prize functions as a referendum on that line: the South had something to say, the industry now formally acknowledged it. The win also kicks off the 2003-2004 stretch during which Southern artists hold the U.S. Top 10 for 58 of 62 weeks.
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