The instrumental is fairly unremarkable, but the Southerners push the track a couple of notches up the Beaufort scale – Cee-Lo blusters, whereas Big Boi is nimble as the breeze. Miami’s Trick Daddy calls on Big Boi and Cee-Lo to spice up some jaunty jangle from Jazze Pha. It’s not quite ‘Royal Flush’, but acted as a timely reminder in 2010 that even though Big Boi seemed the only OutKast member interested in rapping, Andre’s still more than capable of bringing his A-game. Originally included on Big Boi’s Sir Lucious Left Foot…, Jive blocked Andre 3000 from appearing on the final cut of the album (though he did sneak in a production credit, on ‘You Ain’t No DJ’).
Alternating between 808 b-a-s-s bass verses and the full-on orchestration of the chorus, Big Boi’s flow is as melodic and playful as ever, and Sleepy Brown’s hook and breakdown will have you wondering how he never found success outside of OutKast’s discography. You can have the easy irresistibility of ‘Hey Ya’: the real party starter on Speakerboxxx / The Love Below is ‘The Way You Move’. The accompanying video is interrupted by a short interlude that sees Andre escaping a chain-gang and soundtracking his sprint away from imprisonment with his take on the Chariots of Fire theme. The duo channel some velvety-smooth quiet storm vibes on this team-up with Goodie Mob’s Cee-Lo, who brings the falsetto finery on his own verse. Those synths? Those hazy vocals? Yeah, we’re there. ‘Be Still’ paired him up with the ascendant Janelle Monae, and while Dre’s nowhere to be seen, if you didn’t know any better you could almost be listening to OutKast. Three Stacks might command more column inches, but Big Boi’s solo debut Sir Lucious Left Foot… The Son of Chico Dusty was a minor marvel. ( Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty, Def Jam, 2010) Boasts an appearance from Killer Mike before his firebrand days, some commendably off-key singing from Andre, and one of OutKast’s most persistent ear worms. Toytown pop-rap that tiptoes precariously along the natty / naff line and just about manages the balancing act. Jay Z’s ad-lib-heavy chorus teases a deceptively simple verse dropped just before his first curtain call, and a tip of the hat to Killer Mike for raising his game in the company of legends, spraying some of his most battle-ready bars “like a young Cassius Clay in his prime.” Over melodramatic piano arpeggios and guitar harmonics, Big Boi takes this opportunity to drop a little science (and math, for that matter). ( Speakerboxxx / The Love Below, Arista, 2003) Like another artist we profiled in similar fashion, Aphex Twin, they’re technically prodigious artists who’ve blossomed from prodigies into game-changers – and earned the spoils of hero-worship as a result.
What follows are FACT’s Top 50 favourite OutKast tracks, including solo cuts, guest spots and assorted oddities. We’ve spent the last week canvassing our writers to build a picture of OutKast’s finest work. Their solo efforts have been patchier and more sporadic, but not without riches: Big Boi’s hit some high pinnacles on his own, and Andre 3000 is a well-seasoned master of the guest spot. After that, Stankonia was a commercial high watermark buzzing with ideas – and wherever you stand on Speakerboxxx / The Love Below, you simply can’t argue with its imaginative chutzpah.
Their 1990s run is straight-up impeccable: 1994’s Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, a key release in the rise of the Dirty South 1996’s freaky, funky ATLiens and 1998’s head-spinning Aquemini, one of our top five albums of the decade. For all the supposed differences between Andre 3000 (flamboyant, adventurous, gentle) and Big Boi (doughy, purist, hard-edged), they shared a distinctive cadence – a rapidfire, urgent stream-of-consciousness flow, only loosely tethered to the beat – that no-one’s quite matched since.Īt once the strangest and the most gifted of Atlanta’s early 1990s crop, OutKast have spent the last two decades ploughing their own wayward furrow. None of Nas’ flunking or Jay-Z’s up-down output here – pretty much all of the OutKast albums ( Idlewild excluded, obviously) fall into the classic category. Like the Nineties’ other great rap team, The Wu-Tang Clan, OutKast were a perfect storm in action – an unlikely combination of top-level technical chops, proper imaginative vision and double-act charisma. OutKast are that extremely rare package – a hip-hop outfit with mainstream traction and an album career that’s only the odd bum note away from flawless.
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