OutKast to Perform at Rosa Parks Tribute
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Hip-hop stars OutKast, who made Rosa Parks a household name, will perform at a tribute in her honor to be held tomorrow night at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Parks, a retired seamstress and homemaker, died Monday October 24 in Detroit. She was 92. Other celebrities scheduled to appear at the tribute include Cedric the Entertainer and Aaron McGruder, creator of the comic strip Boondocks.
Like Grandma Moses, Parks did not achieve fame until late in life. She was 85 when the song that bore her name and made her famous appeared on “Aquemini,” OutKast’s third studio album. Released in September 1998, “Aquemini” peaked at number 2 on the Billboard charts and sold 2.5 million copies.
“Rosa Parks,” which Nude as the News called “one of the best rap songs ever crafted,” features a harmonica solo and the earwig refrain: “Ah ha, hush that fuss/Everybody move to the back of the bus/Do you wanna bump and slump with us/We the type of people make the club get crunk.”
Ironically OutKast never met the woman whom they made famous. In fact, they did not even know Parks was a real person until they heard from her lawyers.
“The name was Big Boi’s idea,” said Andre 3000, referring to his partner in OutKast. “He was crumbling some herb one night when he came up with it.”
Although OutKast made Rosa Parks famous, other African Americans contributed to her legend. Cedric the Entertainer, who played a curmudgeon named Eddie in the 2002 film Barbershop, playfully suggested that Mrs. Parks did not deserve to be famous.
“Rosa ain’t did nothin’ but sit her black self down,” said Eddie, referring to the only blot on Mrs. Parks’ otherwise exemplary lifeâa 1955 incident in which she was arrested for creating a disturbance on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
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