Hip hop is always a fickle thing to me. I’d say about 90% at least today anyway is just fucking heartbreaking and dreadful. Things like listening to Rae Sremmurd seriously makes me question as to why hasn’t North Korea nuked America yet?
That generic rapping of about money, cars and sex is just so fucking soul crushing and boring.
But that rare 10% of hip hop that is great is absolutely phenomenal. Stuff like Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West and Lauryn Hill are only a few hip hop artists that stand out for me. Those great few groups and artists are nearly some of the most original and inventive musicians in their time.
Outkast is definitely the best hip-hop group for me. Any group that can write lyrical headbangers and party smashers are the best group.
When looking Outkast, I can safely say that they are on the Velvet Underground territory of being revolutionary. Despite being cast as a hip hop duo they use hip hop as their basis to expand into lots of other music.
When looking at their early work, there is that normal template of early 90s hip hop and in their debut album ‘Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik’ there is a sense that there is something more to this lot than just the boring hip hop tag and how limiting it can be.
After their debut, there is a really quick and rapid evolution over ATLiens that is giving a nod of things to come.
But it’s on Aquemini that their genius is just really obvious to see. This is my favourite album by them. Just track after track is just a prime example of that hip-hop can be the most revolutionary genre out of all musical genres.
On ‘Da Art of Storytellin (Pt.1)’ is easily the best song that Outkast ever did. Big Boi’s and Andre 3000’s delivery is just solid. Talking about a girl named Sasha Thumper and her plights, the duo shows off how their lyrical prowess can be put up against the likes Bob Dylan.
It’s interesting to note the path that both Big Boi and Andre 3000 took after Aquemini. They took a bit more pop influence.
Now whenever a musical group goes down a poppy path, it’s seen as a sign of selling out. I would usually agree with because basic pop is the least most creative genre out there. If you want to still retain that critical acclaim you need to add your personality to the genre. That is exactly what Outkast did.
On Stankonia it provides a big melting pot to allow Outkast with gas and great songs like ‘So Fresh, So Clean’ to really break into the mainstream. While retaining their genesis they started to incorporate more poppy hooks into their songs, especially in the absolute classic ‘Ms. Jackson’.
Even on songs like ‘B.O.B’, there is a really strong punk influence in terms of their delivery, which shows how open they are to other genres compared to other hip-hop artists.
It was in scenarios like these and Andre’s method of wanting to expand the music that it allows Big Boi to show how perfect he can compliment Andre with his rapping and flow, and with Andre, he could compliment Big Boi’s rapping with his newly acquired singing and musicality.
I do hear bands like The Smiths in Outkast’s output, but mostly in Outkast’s later years. They certainly appealed to Andre 3000 more, who’s gone on record as saying that The Smiths song ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’ was one song that he wished that he’d written.
Andre said of the lead singer Morrissey in a 2004 interview that ‘It’s all about his [Morrissey’s] performance on the records, it’s almost like he wasn’t a singer at all, I guess he was a poet and did a melody on top of a band playing music.
It’s funny to me, but it’s great that he sings like that. Like he has a book of poems and he goes in and just pulls out a poem and puts it on top of the music because he does the same melodies over and over, I think that’s cool.”
It’s a comparison that could definitely be applied to Andre 3000.
By the time of Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below, Andre had started incorporating more guitar into his music by listening to bands like The Smiths too.
The thinking of The Smiths in that way of it being okay to be a bit odd to venture into really weird and unusual music genres certainly can be applied when Outkast started becoming very experimental in terms of their music.
The only other song by The Smiths that would match the vibe of ‘Hey Ya’ would be ‘Barbarianism Begins at Home’ in terms of having that really funky vibe, similar to other songs like ‘Hey Ya’
It could be mad to say that Outkast was almost a hip-hop equivalent of The Smiths, but I definitely feel like that in terms of both their thinking and how they were trying to go against the typical notions of their respective genres.
Outkast’s music was about 50% sampling, but with 50% coming into the form of creating their own music, something that hip-hop isn’t known and sometimes comes out looking really laughable.
It’s interesting to note the direction that Outkast took on their last album. On Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below this is pop music. The album is basically double album split between Big Boi and Andre 3000 in the form of their debut solo albums.
Andre’s side The Love Below is the closest we’ve ever gotten to an Andre 3000 solo album which is probably a blessing in disguise as he’s actually very anti-rapping past the age of 40.
It’s an unfortunate thing that general music fans lean towards Andre over Big Boi, but it’s probably just due to the fact that Andre actually sang and Big Boi rapped.
I’ve always felt people are going to lean towards singers over rappers just naturally anyway. But if you do listen to ‘Da Art of Storytelling’ Big Boi easily is the best thing about the track but they both complement each other, which is what a duo is supposed to do.
Even on ‘The Way You Move’ from his Speakerboxxx half allows Big Boi to really shine and show he can definitely prove why he is a great rapper.
Even his solo stuff like ‘Shutterbug’ proves that his flow as a rapper can never be questioned.
Since then Outkast has not released another album apart from a soundtrack album and that was in 2006, which in hindsight is probably a good thing because you can only on such a great creative roll for a short period of time before you start to lose your edge.
When evaluating their song catalogue, Outkast’s legacy is really such a strong one that really needs to be appreciated more in my opinion. It’s maybe because of the perception of hip hop and it isn’t ‘real music’ by some fans is a thought that I just hate.
On the surface, they are really good, but if you dig a little deeper they are truly revolutionary, which is a great sign of any artist.
Nostalgic Beat 
