Thanks to the gossip, we got a return to Big Boi’s and Dre’s gangsta selves (and the masterful rhyming of time travelin’ with rhyme javelin). The pitched-up and pinched vocals of the hook sound otherworldly as the duo curves a simple phrase like “Oh yeah” into “Oh-yea-yer.” For all of its laid-back energy, “ATLiens” is indebted to the rage of outsiders. —Harvilla. The line that always sticks with me, however, comes in the front half of his 1:40-long verse: “It’s easier to run the street than walk in the sand.” For André, dropping a solo rap LP would’ve been the easy part. At the beginning of this run, Dre dropped the most surprising collab: “Royal Flush,” a reunion with Big Boi, featuring Wu-Tang’s Raekwon. Wordplaying the biblical queen Jezebel and “Southern belles,” the two trade bars about relationships and promiscuous women against a smooth beat with no need for any chorus. A slow-churning ballad driven by a gurgling bass line and André 3000’s deft touch, “Prototype” is a transportive jaunt that feels more than it sounds. And what jumps out immediately is their paranoia about the present: “Time and time again see I be thinking about that future,” Big Boi opens the first verse; “Time is slipping, slowly but surely,” Dre opens his. The lyrics’ hyperbolic yet grounded approach to love (“Let’s go to the movies”) is par for the course for André, but let’s be honest, you’re here for the vibes. The album debuted at number 2 on the U.S. Shortly after its release, rap and R&B became more adventurous, and soon pop followed. His appearances on UNK’s “Walk It Out,” Rich Boy’s “Throw Some D’s” and UGK’s “International Players Anthem (I Choose You)” were etched into legendary stone the minute they hit the airwaves. The argument for “B.O.B.” at no. “Cops and robbers, niggas be bound to get them dollars and cents,” he sermonizes, “They get in a slump like baseball players when they short on they rent.” Even if “Slump” recognizes that the game is rigged, it reminds listeners that some folks still have to play it. Through it all, a theme emerges: André and Big Boi may have been one of the most popular and respected hip-hop groups of all time, but they achieved those things their own way. All he wants is for the population to smell the damn Folgers, and never forget that when Antwan André Patton brings food for thought to the table, you eat! Starting with Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, when they presented themselves to the world as conscious pimps, the duo made clear they wanted to break the mold. By this point, you’re either nodding your head or shaking it, and truthfully, either reaction is completely justifiable. —Serrano, So much of Outkast’s mythos, from the namesake of the group to their sophomore album, is based in physical and more meta geography. This song is, as they say, a lot—but then again, isn’t life? —Yoo. (“Roses really smell like poo-poo-ooh!”) And especially the meter-smashing way André 3000 barrels through the second verse: “I hope she’s speedin’ on the way to the club tryna hurry up to get to a baller or singer or somebody like that and try to put on her makeup in the mirror and crash, crash, craaaaaash into a ditch.” Harsh. Self-defense is the only defense against the defamation of one’s self-expression from said punk motherfuckers. —Lex Pryor, If you want me to add your song to my playlist of saved jawns, throw in a beat change-up. It’s just a story after all. That’s who loved it.” Let it also be known that it inspired one of the best tweets of all time. Music by OutKast has been featured in the Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives soundtrack, Teenage Bounty Hunters soundtrack and Saints Row IV soundtrack. —Peters, Coming hard out of the Dungeon of Organized Noize, the 1994 track “Ain’t No Thang” is a statement piece. Dre, on the other hand, bends the track to his will, rhyming “car door” with “bottle” and ending on an extended metaphor that compares the hokey-pokey to the drug game—and you’re going to have to trust me on this, but it sounds amazing. The Ringer’s 50 Best Outkast Songs, Ranked. “B.O.B.” is explosive; at 155 beats per minute, it’s faster than practically any rap song you’d ever heard to that point, and it feels even faster—a runaway freight train, except your conductors are either dressed like Jimi Hendrix or wearing Mitchell & Ness. The chorus is a pseudo-sequel to Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik’s “Hootie Hoo,” this time delivered over a faith-infused harmony of background vocals. Instead, they were already wary, eager to get to the next stage. Leave feedback. The song feels both familiar and cosmic, and it fucking rules. Antwan is smooth as a baby’s bottom rapping—and briefly singing—about putting on (and taking off) clothes culled from a variety of species of dead animals. And yet, if you weren’t to watch the video—if you were to watch the video—that factoid would be pretty easy to forget. I'm sorry Ms. Jackson (Oooooo)/ I am four eels/ Never meant to make your daughter cry/ I am several fish and not a guy, A thing that has been lost during all of this Outkast talk is how deliberate and intentional the group always seemed to be, even in their earliest days, which is the surest sign of their genius. Buy used: $30.69 + $19.99 shipping. “Ain’t No Thang” is now a reminder. Outkast's songs: Listen to songs by Outkast on Myspace, Stream Free Online Music by Outkast 34399 Followers. Narrative journeys that frustratingly have no visual treatments: In “Part 2,” André and Big Boi follow the thread of a single, eerily prescient idea. It’s gangsta rap for the South. —Jonathan Kermah, ATLiens is an album about a group on the rise, and “13th Floor/Growing Old,” the album’s final track, shows the responsibility that comes with ascent. A native of Savannah, Big Boi raps about growing up in his hometown, his family, and life in the streets of the Westside projects. “It’s like the room started glowing. The four-minute track feels like you’re sitting backseat on a driving tour of West Savannah, Georgia, with Big Boi at the wheel and Sleepy Brown riding shotgun. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. —Baker. It’s like watching a switch hitter slug a HR from each side of the plate, if done effectively. The song broke barriers and challenged what constituted hip-hop music. When the beat changes, so does Big Boi’s sense of urgency. But on “Skew It on the Bar-B,” the Chef definitely didn’t seem out of his element surrounded by some ATLiens. It confirms that the only thing cooler than being cool is ICE COLD. Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik drops in the fall of ’94 and Big and Dre are both a whopping ... 19 years old. Then Screechy Peach interrupts to remind us that something beyond our control will imminently blow up right in our unassuming faces. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. Outkast’s best song is fueled by an almost dangerous level of energy. In short, it’s Outkast doing the absolute most, and we couldn’t ask for anything more. Some user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. Its hook could easily work in tinkling MIDI form in a subterranean level of an Addams Family Game Boy game. Because they’re Outkast. To understand the subject matter is to understand Outkast in 1996. Within the hook, the line, “But in the middle we stay calm, we just drop bombs” references their treacherous surroundings, and how they sit in the middle and just write rhymes. As it turns out, he’s got a slightly different vision of seduction than the one André sings about on The Love Below. “War” begins with a call to action from Big Boi on the general state of affairs in America. But then the hook comes: Sasha died behind a school “with a needle in her arm, baby two months due.” Maybe there’s a lesson. Outkast - Outkast - Greatest Hits - Amazon.com Music ... Amazon Music Unlimited Amazon Music HD Prime Music Free Streaming Music Buy Music Open Web Player Settings CDs & Vinyl › Rap & Hip-Hop › Experimental Rap Share. (And in one extraordinary case, it includes a Dre and Big Boi guest spot that’s too iconic not to account for.) So there’s always that tricky history that you have to work your way through whenever you’re talking about this song. Go directly to shout page. They won over critics, both white and Black alike, and won a handful of Grammys. Sure, others had experimented with the form before, but never like this. They would satirize this on an Aquemini sketch, when a former fan tells a record store owner, “At first they were some pimps, man, but then they some aliens, or some genies or some shit. outkast goodie mob music videos hip hop rap dvd andre 3000 big boi cee-lo green Outkast’s fourth studio album unfolds like a bombastic awakening that the American dream is anything but, as the duo raps about cancer, AIDS, infidelity, and child support. This song, which was released on 2006’s bittersweet blowout Idlewild but had been originally produced years before that, is a sonic mosaic and an extended musical universe unto itself, even if it somehow never climbed above 95th on the Hot 100 and never made the rap charts at all. Let us know what you think of the Last.fm website. André 3000 asks listeners, “Don’t everybody like the smell of gasoline?” before pivoting to a similar question about apple pie. —Pryor, Big Boi and André 3000 open the video for “Rosa Parks,” the first single from their brilliant third album, Aquemini, by telling you exactly what they’re about to give you. Connect your Spotify account to your Last.fm account and scrobble everything you listen to, from any Spotify app on any device or platform. —Sherman. There’s a satisfyingly ~*~sPoOkY~*~ vibe to this song, which came out as a previously unreleased track on the 2001 greatest hits album Big Boi & Dre Present … Outkast. While the original Organized Noize–produced track more than holds its own, DJ Swift C’s remix—which features an assist from Babyface—is arguably even better. —Holmes, “SpottieOttieDopaliscious” is the clearest hint that Outkast hails from a state with excellent marching bands. Forget New York; forget L.A.; ATL won this day. It was a decade removed from André’s prediction that the South would transform into a critical and commercial behemoth. They were just 19 years old, fresh out of high school and just beginning their recording career. Which is what he does on “The Way You Move.” The rubbery charm of his voice is perfect in the spotlight, and revisiting this song now, it’s clear that he aimed to eventually make his own completely solo masterpiece album, a promise he fulfilled with 2010’s Sir Lucious Left Foot. (Bonus track: The two shared an equally as great collaboration in 2015 on Badu’s “Hello,” the sweet closer to her criminally overlooked But You Caint Use My Phone.) By 2000, Outkast was as American as flammable liquids and fruit-filled pastry, but the group’s magnum opus, Stankonia, felt indebted to a creeping realization. The vocals in its chorus sound like a choir of friendly ghosts. “I’m strictly stressin’ dirty dirty,” Backbone chants, “Gon’ represent it to the T-top / Born and bred up on the street top / Get to the money and the sweet spot / And forever hollerin’ ‘Hootie Hoo!’ when we see cops.” With 3 Stacks taking this track off, Big Boi lives up to his main billing, fluttering up and down the beat with the dexterity of a hummingbird. —Sayles, Amid all the humid, luxuriant funk of Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, what strikes you first about “Hootie Hoo” is how chilly and stark and ominous it is: a menacingly minimalist bass line, a pristine drum break from Black Sabbath’s “Behind the Wall of Sleep,” and a childlike falsetto chant (Hootie hoo!) —Sayles, Content ©2020 The Ringer All Rights Reserved, The Ringer’s 50 Best Outkast Songs, Ranked, How ‘Stankonia’ Changed Outkast—and Popular Music—Forever Ever, I’m speaking ’bout you playing with that phony stuff you sharing,” the latter raps. Let it be known that Badu says her mother absolutely loved it: “How did my mama feel? Jackson’ license plate. But Outkast was no island—peninsula, maybe—and their connection with another perfectly paired Southern duo was too iconic to leave off. OutKast's blend of gritty Southern soul, fluid raps, and the low-slung funk of their production crew epitomized the Atlanta wing of hip-hop's rising force, the Dirty South, during the mid to late '90s. Fittingly, when the tour rolls to a stop, it transitions into another lesson on the “Da Art of Storytellin’ (Part I).” —Daniel Chin. It’s only a matter of time. “Tight like hallways / Smoked out always,” goes the refrain, and lyrically that’s all the song really needs. The T-Mo-and–Khujo-assisted track’s title is a play on words about the struggles of fame and the dope game. “Mainstream” pushes back on the notion, showing that no matter how far Dre and Big Boi get, they’re still two dudes from the A. Fifty of them to be exact. But they identified with the sentiment behind the name: “We didn’t want to be compared to anybody,” Antwan says in Roni Sarig’s 2007 book about Southern hip-hop, The Third Coast. I’d be mortified. It characterizes the extractive relationship between artist and audience in kinda horror-film terms. Having a nascent pseudo-gangster rap duo guest on a Christmas compilation, in the ’90s, no less, was their label’s idea of cross-promotion. On Saturday, Outkast’s seminal fourth, Stankonia, turns 20. It’s amazing this was birthed on a traditional digital sampler like the SP-1200, and not, say, the console of a space shuttle. For nearly four minutes, the larger-than-life characteristics of André and Big Boi begin to form. But the best moment on The Love Below is “She Lives in My Lap,” André’s answer to the Purple One’s “She’s Always in My Hair.” With Rosario Dawson riding shotgun, Dre unspools a messy tale of friends with benefits that have the potential for more. You can read about the album’s legacy—and how it planted the seeds for the group’s dissolution—elsewhere on The Ringer today. It’s not an aggressive drop, but it’s explosive, immediately transforming the track from a head nodder to an ass shaker. The jam you play just before you put on your sauciest fit before the function. You have to know that in order to understand the biggest reason why this song is great, which is that it announced to everyone that if we really were headed toward an eventual dissolution of Outkast, which was a big rumor during this particular period of time, Big Boi, who’d largely been underestimated almost by default because of André 3000’s overpowering coolness, was going to be just fine. One moment I’m nodding my head and listening to Big Boi tell a short story about how he’ll never get caught lacking again, then all of sudden André 3000 is running through walls in my brain like the Juggernaut talking about cod liver oil and the Illuminati. Perhaps we should remember the album more for songs like this. Almost two decades after its release, it still barely makes sense—an upbeat, acoustic guitar-led, ’60s-evoking pop song made by one half of an iconic rap duo from Atlanta, about freaking divorce. At one point in “Mighty O,” he invites every person in the media to “a double diamond party in the North Pole,” which quickly becomes a tournament where everyone has to pretend to be André 3000. Even through the, uh, haze, the path to enlightenment has never been clearer. But Sleepy Brown’s stupendously chill chorus (love the whispered “It’s the master plan!”) is all you really need to know about both the problem and the solution. Stankonia is the fourth studio album by American hip hop duo OutKast, released October 31, 2000 on La Face Records. So his verse on “Babylon” may come across as a tad preachy. It’s a journey that touches on the anxieties that come from fame and success, family, religion, the music industry, and the Black experience. (It’s one of those titles where you see it and you say to yourself, “OK, that’s silly,” but then you turn the album on and you hear it and you go, “All right, actually it’s perfect.”) And of course they’d have a song on that album with the same name, and that song would be lush and soulful and contemporary in a way that felt like throwing the ball to where a receiver was going and not where he was standing. And then, halfway through, the beat drops. Listen free to OutKast – Aquemini (Hold On, Be Strong, Return of the "G" and more). The second name the two chose was Misfits. Outkast thrives when the juxtaposition of Big Boi and 3K is put on display and Two Dope Boyz does that perfectly in under three minutes. There was, of course, his unimpeachable “Int’l Players Anthem” verse, but also his turns on the “Walk It Out” remix, and Drake’s “The Real Her,” and Jeezy’s “I Do,” and Rick Ross’s “Sixteen,” and, well, I could do this all day. It gets in your head and your bones and never leaves. It's all here. Atlanta, Georgia natives André “André 3000” Benjamin and Antwan “Big Boi” Patton are OutKast, one of the most successful rap groups of all time. “Sasha Thumper,” a childhood crush, who just wanted to be “alive,” but of course, life got in the way. On “The Rooster,” Big Boi talks about a different uncoupling—the end of marriage—and doesn’t sound quite ready to go solo with regard to parenting. That’s clearly evident in this track, and it also encompasses the trajectory of the rest of their immaculate career. First the price point of fatigues went up in the surplus stores, and then you started to see the same silhouettes in big department stores, according to Clinton. Could you do it alone? Baby, she bought herself a ‘Ms. So, surrounded by all the posturing bravado and wise-beyond-their-years street knowledge of their debut album, there’s “Git Up, Git Out,” sitting at track 12, fueled by angst, the most youthful of emotions. Outkast is nothing like what you’ve ever heard and the fact that they ended the song with their speech from the infamous ’95 Source Awards proves that they really had something to say. A new version of Last.fm is available, to keep everything running smoothly, please reload the site. And finally, boom goes the injustice. In that case, there was a copyright involved, and if André and Antwan had never heard of Glenn & Co., they knew it was best to stay away. One of the great tragedies of 2000s hip-hop is that we never got a solo André record—or at least one where he was truly rapping. Somewhere along the line, André pursued other forms of transportation, but in this preposterously funky song off of Speakerboxxx, Big Boi asserts that we can still call him the gangsta mack in a Cadillac. —Murdock. It includes all the hits and classics you’ve come to love, plus the deep album cuts and B-sides that show off their versatility. Backed by a sample of Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher,” André and Big Boi came together for one last alchemic feat as a musical group. From André’s chorus to the Patti LaBelle sample, the track serves as a grand introduction to the group’s most ambitious projects, the double solo album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. The hook is basically saying that just like the Pied Piper, Outkast’s music brought people out of their hiding places, taking off the masks and allowing them to be their true selves. With two features from Dungeon Family kin Backbone and Cool Breeze, the track is a reformulation of the age-old southern work song. It also briefly served as a war cry for the most unjust war this country has ever waged, in the same way that “Born in the U.S.A.” is an anthem at Republican rallies. “I apologize a trillion times,” concludes the pop-supernova chorus to Outkast’s first no. For a period that stretches roughly from 2007 to 2013, 3 Stacks blessed a long list of other artists’ records, twisting syllables and dropping gems in a way that surpassed even some of his best Outkast verses. The song is a tour de force of instrumentation, soul, and lyrics. Inspired in part by André’s fraught romance with Erykah Badu (and his consequently chilly relationship with her mother), the bulletproof Stankonia smash swings wildly from his wistful vulnerability (“Forever? But at the same time, all of the things that make Outkast great—stunning creativity, the rejection of genre boundaries, and a unique knack for careful, perceptive thinking—are present in “Hey Ya!” So shake it. Jackson” so thrilling is how agitated and wounded and combative that apology can be. It’s just a story after all. I played three different saxophones and wrote arrangements from hip-hop radio in high school, so I’m speaking from experience here. —Peters, There is something immensely haunting about “Da Art of Storytellin’ (Part 1)”—the synth that croons in the background like the opening to a sci-fi anthology series, the patter of bongos that rattles off every few seconds. André 3000 wears Dia de los Muertos face paint in the music video, while Killer Mike steals the show (Randy Moss–style) with his verse. Between 2006 and 2007, André was employing a scorched-earth policy, dominating on every rap verse he delivered. It’s hard to remember now how rigid genre divides were in the ’90s, and that’s because of Outkast. She had the mug, she had the ink pen, she had the headband, everything. —Chin, “Gasoline Dreams” begins with two very important, albeit rhetorical, questions. How were they gonna get any respect? They went to the underground, and then to outer space, and then back to Atlanta. That moment came nearly 30 years ago, when the artists who would become André 3000 and Big Boi were just a pair of wide-eyed Atlanta teenagers in love with the music of De La Soul and Das EFX, hoping to impress producers Organized Noize and Laface Records label head L.A. Reid.