“Rosa Parks” remains one of Outkast’s catchiest songs of all time. It’s springy and delightfully Southern, as Big Boi rapped about how Black people used to be forced to sit in the back of the bus. It certainly doesn’t seem overtly offensive, especially considering how little Outkast ever dug into controversy. However, sometimes, just likeness alone is enough to take a group to court.
Consequently, when the civil rights icon learned the Atlanta duo were using her name for a song, she took them to court. Essentially, Parks and her team argued that her name was being misappropriated. Using crude language in association with her name was unacceptable in her eyes and sued them accordingly.
The case didn’t go very far at first. Courts ruled that the First Amendment protected Outkast from such a lawsuit. Still, they pushed the issue further. Rosa Parks hired prominent civil rights attorney Johnnie Cochran, who was smoking hot after his leading role on OJ Simpson’s “Dream Team.” By 2003, long after the duo found success with “Rosa Parks”, the Supreme Court allowed them to continue pursuing the lawsuit.
A year later, André 3000 and Big Boi were dropped from the case. Meanwhile, Parks’ team still hashed matters out. Another year later, all parties involved reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount of money.
Why Outkast Was Sued by Civil Rights Icon Rosa Parks
To this day, all parties involved insisted that there was no ill will in using Rosa Parks’ name. “We were just trying to use her as a symbol,” prominent Atlanta disc jockey Mr. DJ said. “‘Everybody move to the back of the bus,’ It was just a real fact. We used to have to go to the back of the bus. It was just something real and we tried to make something positive out of it, not in a bad way.”
“Rosa Parks” wasn’t even meant for Outkast at first either. At the time, André 3000 and Big Boi were honing their craft as producers and the beat was initially shopped to R&B group Total. André was dating one of the group members at the time and figured everything would align perfectly.
But Big Boi insisted he take the record home with him. Immediately, inspiration hit him for a new Outkast song that would eventually lead to “Rosa Parks”. “I remember I was in my bedroom, and I was like, ‘I got the hook!’ I was playing the music loud as hell and I was just singing the hook: ‘Aah-haah, hush that fuss!’ Like, that’s it, we need to lay it down,” he recalled.
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