American alternative hip hop duo OutKast, consisting of André 3000 and Big Boi. It was released on October 24, 2000, as the second single from OutKast’s fourth album, Stankonia. It topped the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for one week on February 17, 2001, and also reached number one in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Rolling Stone ranked it at number 55 on their “100 Best Songs of the 2000s” list in June 2011 and at number 145 on their “Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list in 2021. In October 2011, NME placed it at number 81 on its list of the “150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years”.
“Ms. Jackson” won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards. The music video, directed by F. Gary Gray, features animals nodding along to the song, won the BET Award for Video of the Year and MTV Video Music Award for Best Hip-Hop Video. The single helped sell the album following the commercial underperformance of the lead single, “B.O.B”, which, despite near universal acclaim from critics, failed to chart on the Hot 100 and only reached number 69 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
