Off The Record: OutKast's Aquemini Vs. Stankonia

OFF THE RECORD: OutKast, Aquemini Vs. Stankonia

WSOE Senior Editor Ben Nguyen O’Connor offers a conclusion WSOE’s Black History Month event with a long-winded analysis of one of the most relevant musical groups of all time, OutKast, and two of their most critically-acclaimed works--Aquemini and Stankonia.

Git Up, Git Out: Intro

For most people, something being “stank” is not a good thing. Stinkiness, stench, or “stank” are generally used in negative connotations for things that are dirty: dirty people, dirty things, dumpsters, and children. Generally no one tries to be stank, in fact, there are billion dollar industries trying to sell the exact opposite of that.

But for a couple of young musicians in 90s Atlanta, Georgia, stank was the goal. To these people, being stank meant being authentic. It meant to be real--to be real with oneself and to act and conduct yourself for a greater truer meaning. And for those young musicians, stank also meant making great music.

We came to know these artists as the Dungeon Family, a collective of young artists from Atlanta, Georgia, determined to put their city on the map in the hip hop scene. They set themselves apart from their contemporaries, not only for being one of the few epicentres for hip hop in the South, but also for taking adventurous steps in fusing rap with various other genres like funk, soul, jazz, and rock.

These days no one bats an eye at a rapper with “soul influences” or a rapper with a guitar solo in their track but it’s because of the Dungeon Family that fusion became a part of rap. And while every artist in the Dungeon Family had a part in elevating the fusion of hip hop fusion, the main innovators were a rap group raised by the family called OutKast.

OutKast was a hip hop duo consisting of members Andre 3000 and Big Boi, who over the course of their 15 year career together made some of the best and most relevant hip hop music ever. Born from the Dungeon Family, the duo incorporated fusion sounds into their music as well as popularizing those sounds across the country and world with their brilliant songwriting abilities.

The only place to start when trying to explain the impact and legacy of OutKast is with the beginning. Andre Benjamin (Andre 3000) and Antwan Patton (Big Boi) met in high school where they met doing rap battles with other students after school. It was the love of the music and the craft that brought them together and it’s what brought them to fame and stardom.

The duo took their hobby to another level when they started working with Organized Noize, a producer group who believed that the two had the potential to take it seriously. And after the duo was signed to LaFace Records, they released their first single “Player’s Ball” in December 1993, an unlikely hit that would top the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks chart. Even at the beginning, audiences seemed to love their fusions of funk rhythms into hip hop.

Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, their debut record, dropped in late 1994 to much acclaim. It’s intriguing hip hop fusion tracks made for songs that were both graceful and “stank”. The album contained features from Dungeon Family relatives Goodie Mob whose collaborations with OutKast would be mainstay down the road. The album was a hit in Atlanta but still hadn’t broken through out of their community and the ambition within Dre and Big fueled them to go the extra mile on the next record.

ATLiens, their second record, did exactly that. Instead of just sticking with the sound they had done before, OutKast ventured farther outside of the rap genre including sounds of rock and soul. The album was more adventurous lyrically and conceptually too, moving on from the one-dimensional content of gangsters and pimps of the debut and into themes of extraterrestrial life, maturity, and Black freedom.

The record was a critical success and the album blew up around the country for rap fans, getting the word of Atlanta’s “Dirty South” rap style into the rap scene. But as the duo ventured away from their roots, they lost a lot of fans who latched onto them from the debut because they were so safe lyrically then. And this tug of war between fans and OutKast’s ambition for experimentation would be there until their demise.

Also, the two members were totally different then the young men they were before. Big Boi became a father around the development of ATLiens, and the weight of familial responsibility on him only grew. Meanwhile, Dre was diving deep into experimental art, listening to all kinds of music, wearing weird clothes, and developing himself spiritually. It was around this time Dre began a relationship with neo-soul singer and Soulquarian member Erykah Badu, whose relationship with Dre would have a big impact on both of their music. The members of OutKast were no longer the kids they were before.

So as the duo approached the album cycle for their third record, audiences were intrigued how far they’d go this time around. After the craziness with ATLiens, where was the group’s music going? Why are their beats sounding more and more experimental? Are they even real members of the Dungeon Family anymore? What the hell is Andre 3000 wearing?

Needless to say tensions were high for the duo and it seems like all eyes were on them for where they would go next. The beats were sounding weirder, the lyrics were deeper, and the duo was hard at work in the studio for a year constructing the next record. And absolutely no one could have prepared the public for what OutKast would release next and for the rest of their career.

OutKast’s next two records were masterpieces of modern music and carry enough depth to be studied in museums. But for you, I’m going to dig deep in each song of each record and tell you which album I think is better. There’s so much to talk about for each one so let’s just get right into them.

Aquemini: Breakdown

Aquemini was released on September 29th, 1998 to audiences who couldn’t be less prepared for what Outkast had coming. After two years of intensive work, the album was released to audiences who weren’t ready for the duo’s pop potential.

With commercial success of ATLiens, the duo had more creative freedom to buy more studio time, and the subsequent Aquemini sessions were much more vigorous and involved than anything they’d done before.

The duo also brought in a wide range of backing musicians who played from a myriad of different styles. During these sessions, long jam sessions would be orchestrated by Dre and Big to form the instrumentals for each song. Opposed to the album before, the beats would be much more natural and mature, having come from these extensive sessions.

The title for the record “Aquemini” is a portmanteau of the two rappers’ astrological signs--Big Boi being an Aquarius and Andre 300 being a Gemini. The combination of their names implied that this album was more of a combined effort than anything before. And the songs of the album showed the most focused record they’d ever release.

“Hold On, Be Strong” is a short interlude by session guitarist Donny Mathis who wrote the piece as a potential hook for an Outkast song in their sessions. It’s short and sets a dramatic tone for the record to come.

“Return of the ‘G’” is the primer for Aquemini that reintroduces the listeners to the duo. It also is one of the few samples on the record using Giorgio Moroder’s “Theme from Midnight Express” as the basis for the song’s groove. The slow trudging beat allows for a confrontational opening verse from Dre where he announces his return, calling out rumors about the group since Southerplayalistic. He thanks his haters who called off his experimental and seemingly “soft” persona whose hate only motivated Dre to work his way to stardom. Dre lets the haters know that no matter how much he experiments with his music and appearance, he’ll always stay gangster. Big jumps on following Dre, backing him up and letting close-minded listeners know to stay on their toes.

The slow fade-in of “Rosa Parks” is a rising crescendo of background vocals, Dre’s insistent vocal scatting, record scratching, and ad-libs that explode into one of the most-exciting beats Outkast has ever laid to track. The chorus shudders with ground-shaking percussion, twangy acoustic guitars, groovy bass, and Big Boi on vocals, all culminating into an incredible club-banger. There’s something so graceful yet eclectic about this chorus that I can’t get it out of my mind after I’ve listened to it. Not to mention the hilarity of the connection between the “Everybody move to the back of the bus” line and Rosa Parks which always cracks me up. Big Boi and Dre trade verses, both filled with impressive flows and charismatic rhymes until we arrive after the third chorus at a goddamn harmonica solo! The shift from ‘90s Southern club banger to rockabilly harmonica solo is so jarring, but even more jarring is how good the solo from Dre’s step father Pastor Robert Hodo is in the context of the song.

“Skew It On the Bar-B” features verses from legendary rapper Raekwon from Wu-Tang Clan fame whose verse includes a legendary amount of internal rhyming structures. The collab was coincidental, as Raekwon only met OutKast by bumping into Big Boi at the mall. They talked each other’s music up and Big invites Rae to come to the studio. Dre plays Raekwon the beat for “Skew It” they have so far and immediately knows that he has to be on the song. What’s amazing is how the impromptu session went over as well as it did. Rae fits right in with the humor and vibe of the duo and the song is single-handedly the main factor in getting OutKast popularity in the Northeast. After “Skew It”, the scene in New York knew about OutKast and, consequently, the South learned about the Wu-Tang Clan.

The title track “Aquemini” is a multi-dimensional dive with smooth r&b drums and wavy guitars to lead the beat as Dre and Big drop some of their most legendary bars to date. The mood of the track continues from the theme of singularity from the record title. While their physical manifestations will eventually die, they got each other’s backs ‘until they close the curtain’. The false ending swings back for a gritty verse from Big Boi before leading into one of Andre 3000’s most iconic moments. Dre begins shooting back and forth these quick three syllable phrases in rapid succession sounding absolutely vicious and psychedelic: see the verse here, it’s mind-blowing.

“Synthesizer” is inarguably, Aquemini’s weirdest moment. The song uses a connection between the heavy use of synths of the track to the topic of synthesizing human form and the future of medicine mixing with eugenics. And for a track so trippy and psychedelic, there’s no better person to pick for a feature than the psych-funk legend George Clinton of Parliament-Funkadelic fame. Clinton’s spoken word verse is chilling and other-worldly featuring “Computer bugging debugging devices and vice versa” and “Mind-fuckin you, a psycho-sodomy of the medulla oblongata”. While Big Boi’s preceding verse is really just about OutKast and their run-of-the-mill subject matter, Andre 3000 questions the ethics of humanity’s control on their appearance, fearing eugenics on the horizon. Clinton’s overlapping overdubs climax in the ending of the song where Dre and Clinton clash anxious ad-libs with the haunting children’s choir until the song fades out.

“Slump” is a gritty, biographical song about the struggles of trapping to make ends meet in OutKast’s hometown of Atlanta. Although both Big and Dre had different backgrounds growing up, they both pushed drugs at some point to get by. The chorus in this song done by Backbone is a testament to the genius and creativity of OutKast hook’s and how something so odd as an atonal, arhythmic chant hits as well as it does. Even here, on a song where only one of the two in the duo raps, you can still hear both of their influences in the instrumental: Big pushing for tight hooks and structure while Dre pushed the envelope with the chanting chorus and psych rock guitars.

“West Savannah”, as declared by Big Boi in the outro of the preceding song, is a lost nugget from the Southernplayalistic era. The short but sweet banger features harmless, yet catchy melodies between its funky guitars, R&B drums, and elevating horn stabs in the background. While there isn’t too much to this song worth noting for experimentation, it’s just a really well put together song and shows a tight kickback-style track of OutKast’s earlier era adapted into their newer sound.

The two parts of “Da Art of Storytellin’” tell two distinct narratives of different tones, the first of which tell stories of romances from Big and Dre. Big goes first, talking about a casual relationship he has with a girl while juggling care for his baby mama and daughter. Dre’s story in the second verse is much darker where he recalls knowing a girl named Sasha Thumper in his youth (‘thumper’ meaning she was an addict). The underlying beat is worth noting too for its skittering, almost progressive drum shuffle and the kaleidoscopic guitar lines holding together the song.

Part 2 is a cut-and-dry rapidfire linear piece telling a story about a different kind of lust than part 1: the lust of humanity draining the Earth of its resources and leaving it to crumble. The apocalyptic beat here is carried by eerie pianos and siren-like synths that screech a sense of urgency into the listener. Dre hits the ground running with a fiery verse about man’s hubris in tearing up the Earth, linking together part 1 with a brutal metaphor of humanity lust Big’s verse also features some of his darkest and creative lyrics too.

The dark attitude of “Da Art of Storytellin, Pt. 2” leads right into the coldest and most controversial song on Aquemini, “Mamacita”. The controversy isn’t actually from the sexism in the track--which I’ll be talking about soon--but from the repetitive, two-word chorus whose atonality and almost lazy performance is a valid and honest gripe with the track. Featuring five verses--Masada, Andre 3000, Witchdoctor, Big Boi, and Buullllllll!--”Mamacita” is a hefty track and discusses the tribulations of sexual relationships. Masada’s verse right at the beginning is a nice contrast to the four verses of men that follow her as she brings her East Coast flow in spades to the track. The aforementioned four verses of men talking about sex are fine in their context but have not dated well at all, with their objectification of women falling flat and childish. Now while I personally don’t have much of a gripe with the chorus as others, “Mamacita” definitely goes down as the worst track on Aquemini for its lethargic beat, uncomfortable lyrics, and lack of creativity.

Quick mood shift to “SpottieOttieDopalicious”, a masterpiece of rap/electronic fusion and my personal favorite track on the album. The ultimate kickback track, “Spottie” is guided by a euphoric and celebratory group horn line that stands-in as the chorus for the track. The horn line is the ultimate final touch to a track already laden with one of the grooviest beats on the whole album. Washy psych guitars, a hip hop/R&B fusion drum beat, a commanding bassline, a sample from prog-rock legends Genesis, and delay effects put together what is essentially a Jamaican dub track, not anything unlike the heyday work of legends like The Scientist or King Tubby. Dre delivers a verse recalling the scene of a nightclub as a psychedelic, almost holy place where a cast of Atlanta’s characters collide. Big’s verse is sensual and recalls the night he met his baby mama, or his “SpottieOttieDopaliscious” as he calls her. For once you see the emotion in Big’s voice and he meditates on meeting this woman and bringing a child into the world. If this song doesn’t get you f**king, I don’t what will.

“Y’All Scared” is a legendary intersection of Atlanta’s greatest talents of the nineties where Outkast unites with Goodie Mob for a vicious, hardcore cut about upbringing. The tight chugging beats lays the groundwork for five cold-hearted verses from Big, Dre, T-Mo, Gipp, and Khujo. The beat of the song is minimal and understated but has nice guitar and organ embellishments to make the track sound sacred.

“Nathaniel” is a short vocal interlude of a freestyle with Nathaniel, high school friend of Mr. DJ (a producer of Outkast) who was jailed and raps over the phone from incarceration.

“Liberation” fittingly leads right out of “Nathaniel”, an interlude literally spit from an incarcerated man, and talks about liberation from not only the injustice of American culture on Black folks but liberation from the material world and the perceptions of others. It starts with straight-faced piano keys, opening into Andre’s verse where his repeated mantra of “There’s a fine line between love and hate, Came way too late but baby I’m on it” confronts how it feels to be an artist as expressive as he is. Big’s verse both covers familial liberation and the responsibility he has to his family. Cee-Lo Green’s verse is chock-full of biblical references and hymnal-like vocal lines that could very well be part of a priest's sermon. Erykah Badu makes her appearance on Aquemini here with a take on liberation as a mental kind to transcend past the difficulties of fame and how fake everyone around here is. The final verse from Big Rube is a sobering spoken word piece about Black liberation and rolls up the song with poetic parallels and epic metaphors. Each magical verse in the song is guided by the natural and three dimensional instrumentation of background vocals, somber pianos, and compressed drums. If the title track of Aquemini is the brain of the record, then “Liberation” is the soul of it.

“Chonkyfire” is OutKast’s closing statement for Aquemini and sees the two artists discussing their reason for making the music they make. Dre’s verse is a reference to the Pied Piper, likening the duo to the fictional character. While the Pied Piper would bring the pests of Hamelin out with his music, OutKast seeks to expose the underbelly of fake artistry and fake gangsters who hide behind the mask:

Do you know what brings rats, mice, snakes up out of they hole?

Chonkyfire, spliced with rock n'roll indubitably, piper pied

Big’s verse is about making music that’s true to the two of them and their background while still breaking new ground. The bold and sharp guitar lines match the confrontational attitude of the song and embody the duo’s fiery ambition to change the rap game. The song caps off with samples of the 1995 Source Awards where OutKast won ‘New Artist of the Year, Group’. Dre and Big both deliver short victory speeches, mentioning their ambitions and plans to shake music forever. Dre tops it off with his final line:

“But it's like this, the South got somethin' to say. That's all I got to say.”

Stankonia: Breakdown

Approaching the horizon of the next millenia, OutKast were in a firm position as one of, if not the most interesting hip hop group at the time. The group were hanging off the release of they’re most critically acclaimed and cutting edge project Aquemini, and were moving forward with even more ambition.

So the writing period for the next record was bound to be just as expansive and tumultuous as the one before. The group bought a studio in Atlanta and worked on the album for a year. Being able to own the studio instead of renting one allowed them to have infinitely much more time to work on it. Like the album before, OutKast recruited the expansive lineup of backing musicians they featured on Aquemini.

Stankonia, released on LaFace Records, dropped on Halloween 2000 to OutKast’s biggest and hungriest audience yet. The record sold over half-a-million copies in its first week and debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 charts. It seemed like America’s most anticipated album of the year. So needless to say, 500,000 people in November of 2000 popped in the CD and never could’ve expected what they were about to hear.

Stankonia was more than just a record. It was a transport to another dimension. A dimension where genres were merely labels and all edges of music melded into one. The album was an expansive portrait of how OutKast perceived the world and was supplied with some of the most cutting edge hip hop ever created.

The album is interspersed with a lot of interludes and skits, placed not only to add humor to the experience but to pad out the album with extra nuggets of narrative. While Aquemini used skits as humor, Stankonia uses skits as exposition.

After the intro featuring some odd voice acting and sexual moans begins the album’s opener “Gasoline Dreams”. This song is an apocalyptic rocker that shoves the listener right into the experimental sounds of the new record. Heavy psych guitars, robotic drums, and assertive basslines tear up the mix for Andre 3000 to yell a confrontational chorus calling out America’s decline. Dre’s wailing vocals and depressing lyrics are borderline punk and show a novel side of the rapper. Big Boi’s verse gives a deep sense of anger and disappointment for the declining state of America’s institution. The song anticipates many of the themes in Stankonia--authenticity vs. insincerity, the decline of America, experimentation--while also delivering a bombastic punk-rap anthem.

“So Fresh, So Clean” is the album’s friendliest song and calls back to the kind of sound that got OutKast the audience they have now. But while the song is a throwback to those old sounds, Big Boi and Andre’s experience shows how developed and creative their flows are, almost a decade into the business now. Big lists elements of his life of leisure and Dre’s bridge proclaims that they are indeed “the coolest mother-funkers on the planet”. Not to mention, the chorus on this song is absolutely brilliant with its funky “ain’t nobody dope as me” line and the contrasting ad-libs in the background--”So fresh and so clean, clean”. Just an absolutely great time and definitely one of their most emblematic singles.

OutKast excelled in how they were able to make hip hop songs that were both experimental and accessible, and no other song in their catalog brilliantly displays this ability better than “Ms. Jackson”. The track comes from the end of a relationship where Andre 3000 broke up with Erykah Badu, and subsequently apologized to Badu’s mother.

I'm sorry, Ms. Jackson, ooh, I am for real

Never meant to make your daughter cry

I apologize a trillion times

If his apology in these lyrics seem incredibly personal it's because it actually is his apology to Badu’s mother, who he was afraid to confront until he wrote this. Big’s verse in comparison talks about his tensions between him and his baby mama through divorce settlements, child support payments, and custody battles. Big’s brilliance is mostly in his flows but on this song, he delivers his most sincere verses ever. His anger and exhaustion in fighting to support his daughter Jordan shows Big Boi at his most vulnerable. The song’s melody is led by this glittery synth lead and these groovy drums that contrast with these warping inverted samples that lay the groundwork for Dre’s piano keys and bass slapping. The track’s chord progression is infectiously catchy and its combination with the chorus is brilliant songwriting.

When “Snappin’ & Trappin’” and its odd synth lines follow the album’s radio hit, OutKast signals that they're done playing it safe for the rest of the record. The song blasts through with these quirky synth samples as Killer Mike comes with a heartless opening verse. Big’s solo verse is stone-cold but the brilliance of the performances come from Big and Mike’s third verse where they spit bars back and forth about drugs and women. The beat’s incessant shuffle and skittering hi-hats are unsettling and bring the song in an intriguing direction.

Stankonia’s most normal moment is “Spaghetti Junction”. The song is similar to “So Fresh, So Clean” in that it calls back to an earlier form of OutKast songwriting--talking about coming up in ATL--but transforms it with elevated lyricism and production. The song’s lowkey guitar sample and horn hits make for a sonically dense song that isn’t overwhelming either. The verses also contain Dre and Big in full form, weaving 4-bar sections between each other and sharing each verse. Even today, twenty years after the record dropped, we don’t see groups or duos of rappers so in sync with each other’s music as OutKast is on this song.

And right after Stankonia’s most normal moment, it jumps to its weirdest moment with “I’ll Call B4 I Cum”. The song’s title and chorus both weigh on this double entendre about calling before coming over to meet up and calling before climaxing in bed. It’s a hamfisted metaphor that fits with the song’s oddly playful attitude. It’s trudging percussion contrasts with an off-kilter upbeat bassline like a high school kid fitted in trashy clothes and too much Axe body spray for junior prom--and I mean that in the most endearing way possible. Dre and Big’s verses are riddled with playful and goofy references but Gangsta Boo and Eco’s retorting verses on the second half make the track.

Aside from “Ms. Jackson”, “B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)” was the other breakout hit of Stankonia. The song is a drum ‘n’ bass banger that fuses psychedelic guitars, high-paced IDM rhythms, and gospel vocals to make OutKast’s experimental opus. The song lands with sparks as Dre kicks into his highest energy verse ever talking about everything from new age paranoia to pondering the paths of life. Big’s verse is comparatively explosive too and each of them are tied together by the song’s shouting chorus. The various elements of the song build throughout each verse and release into the chorus.

“Xplosion” is a scary rocker that features a fitting contribution from hardcore hip hop pioneer B-Real of Cyprus Hill fame. The eerie beat with its dark harpsichord line gives it a uniquely horror vibe. Dre and Big give some fine verses while B-Real steals the spotlight feeling right in his element on this track. Real spits bars calling out critics with graphic detail bringing his style nicely into OutKast’s production. While the chorus here is definitely one of OutKast’s weakest, the surrounding elements help make up for it.

“We Luv Deez Hoes” is another playful meditation on sexuality, where Big Boi with Backbone and Big Gipp sing about their love for ‘deez hoes’. Crude, yes. Sexist, yes. No denying those qualities. But its warbling synth lines and piano keys make up for it. And while Big’s sexist comments drag it down, his occasional humor is nice. Definitely one of the worst here, but still inventive.

My personal favorite of Stankonia “Humble Mumble” is a club-flavored banger that sees both members meditating on their place in hip hop. While Big recalls memories of the come-up, Dre talks about the push for justice and the humility they try to uphold in their music. The track also holds another layer of tension with an appearance from Erykah Badu, who probably recorded the track with the duo before the break-up. Badu and Dre deliver a fiery collaborative chorus that embodies the kind of ‘third-eye’ poeticism they both embody in their music. Definitely one of the most experimental tracks here that lands the best.

“?” is an elusive interlude with a skittering, almost IDM beat where Andre 3000 just spits one continuous fiery verse asking questions about what makes a man do certain things--it’s alcohol.

“Red Velvet” is one of the best produced songs on the record, mixing a bunch of the sounds the duo was exploring at the time. The chipper beat matches low-poly synths and distorted guitars to build a beat that moves fast to contrast the songs slow-moving choruses and bridges. It also features some of the duo’s most interesting songwriting, featuring various bridges and offshoots modulated with pitch shifters and bolstered with gospel vocals to make it sound like George Clinton if he made 90s hip hop. Dre and Big singularize on this track, speaking about the dangers of flexing wealth and how that kind of hubris is what gets rappers like that killed. Their flows become one on this track as they wind in and out of musical bridges and choruses to make every second of the track engaging.

“Gangsta Shit” is the dedicated Dungeon Family cut featuring guest verses from OutKast faves like Slimm Calhoun, Goodie Mob’s T-Mo, Konkrete’s C-Bone, and Buullllllll! The lyrics are run-of-the-mill southern gangster rap but the beat of the song is a different story. I’ll shout out the fact that like most Dungeon Family collabs, the members have compatible flows and the song really has no lull besides maybe the repetitive chorus.

The most dramatic cut of Stankonia is “Toilet Tisha”, a ballad about a teenage pregnancy in the slums of Atlanta. Being a ballad, the song uses various audio techniques to tell the story in rich detail. Each verse, we learn more about this character and how both Dre and Big remember her. While the subject matter is deeply depressing, the song’s production is slow and emotional, textured with kaleidoscopic synths and gospel choir melodies to make the most cinematic track on the record. While the name of the song is a little trashy--intentionally so--every element of it makes it a surprisingly serious cut in an album with goofs and gaffs everywhere.

“Slum Beautiful” is a chugging sexy cut that also marks CeeLo Green’s appearance for Stankonia. The song’s content is pretty typical--each member of the track talks about their ideal mistress. But the song’s production is what makes it special. The song is littered with reversed guitar licks, like something pulled straight from Jimi Hendrix’s catalog. Those mixed with the samba-esque beat make an R&B slow jam unlike anything you’ve ever heard before.

The title track--also called “Stanklove”--is the album’s epic finisher and Stankonia’s longest track too. Every song in the album leads up to this conclusion, where bits of all of OutKast come together. The song is an R&B slow burner mixing together sensual doo-wop vocals, rigid drum machines, shapeshifting synths, and wild psych guitars. The lyrics relate back to the world of “Stankonia” that’s been offered to us this whole album--a separate dimension of artistic and spiritual authenticity--portraying the truest or “stankest” love. The exasperated background vocals sound both holy and sexual like sex made in heaven. And the chorus contrasts those descending vocals with Andre 3000, drenched in effects proclaiming the words of their religion: “Stanklove!” The verses are handled mainly by features Big Rube and Sleepy Brown whose low baritone voices fit perfectly in this song. For an album like Stankonia, I seriously couldn’t imagine a more fitting and satisfying ending than this.

The Love Below: Analysis

No critical writing before endeavor has been as much a challenge as this was. The research process and critical process has been difficult, not only because there’s so much of OutKast history to get right (and wrong), but also of the legacy these records have had on the landscape of music. Whether or not you listened to much OutKast, you’ve definitely heard indirect influences of them from Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar to MGMT and Janelle Monae.

So the decision on which album is superior has been the battle in my mind. So much so that my brain needs to get it out and move on for god’s sake. No slight at OutKast though, I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t love their music. But my mind has shuffled around its favorite of the two for too long and I coaxed it into a decision. And it is with full sincerity that I acknowledge Stankonia as the better of the two.

I imagine any OutKast fans should’ve seen this one coming…

The uphill journey of experimentation and quality that OutKast was on in the mid 1990’s is still legendary today and the question in which album is better here is also asking “Where did OutKast’s winning streak peak?”

For many people in the music scene it seems to be a subjective question because every step along in their discography, people seem to turn their backs on the duo claiming they’ve gone too far. In between Southernplayalistic and ATLiens, a lot of hip hop purists turned away from their more experimental approach. With Aquemini, more purists turned and Stankonia seemed to be the last straw for many.

But, just as closed-minded fans left, more mainstream audiences flocked to their music. As the duo pressed on, more of their experimental hits made the mainstream. Starting with “Rosa Parks”, their first hit with big radio potential to “Ms. Jackson” and finally “Hey Ya” on the fifth record Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. The Recording Academy even issued a late--as usual--response to the duo’s talent, awarding Speakerboxxx/The Love Below Album of the Year in 2005.

So if the choice for each fan’s favorite OutKast album is how accessible it is and how much of the duo's experimentation they could stomach, how could I make a learned pick for an objective winner? This question is especially difficult in comparing Stankonia and Aquemini where the gap in sonic experimentation is biggest between these two albums.

Normally the critic chooses the ‘contextually important’ one of the bunch and I don’t doubt the importance of understanding it when making a decision especially as a critic. But I think in this situation, it’s more than that.

First we’ll talk consistency. Each album has its hits and duds. Stankonia’s duds include tracks like “Xplosion” whose mediocre structure and pretty safe beat makes for one of the few skips on the record. “We Luv Deez Hoes” suffers from the same issues while also pushing sexist attitudes a little too hard to stomach more than once.

So while Stankonia’s duds are boring instrumentally and thematically, Aquemini’s misses are few and far between. The only two candidates are “Y’All Scared”--the Goodie Mob cut that’s just forgettable--and “Mamacita”--a song that fails in its uncomfortable sexism, flaccid beat, and derivative chorus.

So I’d say each album shares the same amount of misses but Stankonia rises with its deep cuts. While Aquemini’s unspoken heroes like “Synthesizer” and “SpottieOttieDopaliscious” are hidden gems, Stankonia excels above its singles in its deep cuts.

“Spaghetti Junction” is one OutKast’s paradoxes that combined their old school themes with the fusion instrumentation and third-eye wordplay that elevated their later work. “Humble Mumble” still stands as one of hip hop’s most cutting edge tracks ever and “Red Velvet” is practically a condensed opus of OutKast’s greatest strengths.

But I would be a fool to disregard Stankonia’s hits which make up some of the most brilliant hip hop songs ever created. “B.O.B.” is a song so experimental and adventurous, blurring lines between several genres that it is truly amazing to think mainstream audiences loved it. And “Ms. Jackson”, with its unbelievably crisp production, timeless themes, and brilliant lyricism, is probably one of the best hip hop songs of all time.

Tonally, Aquemini is a pretty chill record the whole way through. It stays around a mid-tempo BPM throughout most of the album and its few breaks into high energy are still pretty chill. While this means it's a great record to keep in the background while doing something else--nothing will jump out and scare you--it also means it can be a bit sleepy, and the ride throughout the album is more of a cruise.

Meanwhile Stankonia is a rollercoaster of emotions. The album goes from high energy punk rock to low-key gangster kickback to drum ‘n’ bass banger to sexy slow jam in a matter of seconds. The jumps between mood are exciting and make an album experience that never lulls.

Stankonia has several places where these jarring cuts in tonality between songs make for fantastic pacing for the record. “We Luv Deez Hoes” is a fitting gangster anthem but is followed by “Humble Mumble” a skittering samba track. The goofy “I’ll Call B4 I Cum” makes way for the manic “B.O.B.”, jumpstarting the energy in a place that would otherwise be a hiccup in the record.

Stankonia is a masterfully constructed album with great pacing but I think it’s biggest quality over Aquemini is its themes. These ambitious themes are what set aside OutKast artistically from contemporaries who were just releasing collections of songs. Starting from ATLiens, the duo’s tenacity for album concepts are what made them so intriguing in the eyes of critics.

With Aquemini, OutKast embraced the idea of their combined minds becoming one. OutKast wasn’t a duo anymore but a combined force. They reinforced this in their lyrics with themes about watching each others’ backs especially on the title track where their flows weave within and around one another.

But while the album wore this theme in its very title, it had inconsistencies in the execution. There are songs on the record that are so clearly one of the two rappers’ ideas. “West Savannah” is basically a Big Boi cut--classically Dirty South and Andre 3000 is nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile “Da Art of Storytellin’ Pt. 2” and “Synthesizer” are so clearly borne from the mind of Andre 3000 that when Big raps on these cuts, his lyrics stray far from the themes.

Now I totally get that creating an album that is equally borne from the mind of two people is virtually impossible. But, there’s no doubt it breaks from the theme of the record and drags down some tracks in the album. This album, so focused on the singularization of two minds, fails enough times to be annoying.

Stankonia is a completely different scenario. The whole idea of the record is about this imaginary place free from the injustices of American life and embodying authenticity, something American culture and media lacked at the time. Through this lens, OutKast was able to explore every aspect of society, making nuanced critiques of the world around while fitting into this concept they made.

“Gasoline Dreams” is its stinging opener that spits at the commercial culture of consumption in America while “Red Velvet” scoffs at the lavish living of rappers falling victim to the capitalist nature of their surroundings. “Toilet Tisha” is about the trappings of society on teenage pregnancy and in contrast to their earlier work, “Gangsta Shit” is a criticism of romanticization of gang culture in the media.

Ultimately for a duo like OutKast, their musical ambition is their most lasting critical quality. The duo seemed to tiptoe the line of making brilliant, accessible pop music while widening the boundaries of what the mainstream music scene accepted. And no other record of theirs pushed the envelope of music more than Stankonia.

I still love Aquemini. It’s a fantastic record. It’s buttery smooth tones and crisp R&B instrumentation are intoxicating. And Andre 3000 and Big Boi are so damn cool the whole way through. When I want an OutKast record to relax to, it’s Aquemini.

But if I’m picking a favorite child, an MVP, a winner by decision, it’s Stankonia. It’s rare that any album does what Stankonia did: expand the musical palette, maintain artistic depth, and just be a great record to listen to. Sure, it has its duds and no album is absolutely perfect. But throughout its production, lyricism, and high concept, the ambitious attitude of OutKast is in full force and when we look back on their music in the books, Stankonia will be the ultimate testament to their genius.

[Ben Nguyen O’Connor]