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Outkast's Andre 3000 turns fashion guru

Writer: Jeremy Goldmeier
News, Published online on 20 Feb 2008

Maybe he's a neighbor, crusty uncle or a local store owner, but we all know someone like him: the staunch, anti-rap reactionary. He's learned all about the menace of hip-hop culture from Bill O'Reilly, and damned if he'll let any of that boombox-blasting, graffiti-spraying delinquency infiltrate his pristine suburban community. When he's not railing against rap music's lyrical filth or its noisy beats, he's penning a diatribe to the local paper about hip-hop's abominable style of dress.

"Young men wearing their pants about their ankles! What's this world coming to, anyway?"

Perhaps we should introduce this esteemed defender of public taste to Mr. Benjamin Bixby. He's the pseudonym behind the new clothing line from Outkast's Andre Benjamin, and he just might be the one to convince the haters that hip-hop can dress up, too.

"[Bixby] is a character who’s kind of like your uncle, or your granddad, and he has a closet full of experiences and clothes, and he’s been around the world," Benjamin told New York magazine in a recent feature on his "rebel gentleman" fashion project.

The Bixby line mixes in prep school influences with Sir Andre's well-documented taste for the outrageous. New York reporter Ben Williams describes one particular ensemble as that of a "wealthy, eccentric caballero."

"There has to be something inventive about it," Benjamin said. "But not so inventive that it’s a turnoff. So that some of the greats, like Beau Brummell or the Duke of Windsor, would nod and say, 'Well done.'"

The article also drops word of an Andre 3000 solo album appearing this fall. Hmm... will it go head-to-head with erstwhile cohort Big Boi's own solo project? And is Andre's leap into the fashion world a parry to Boi's high culture dabblings? Perhaps a rivalry between these two could be just as entertaining as a full-fledged collaboration.

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Outkast's Andre 3000 turns fashion guru

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