Outkast win Album of the Year with Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

Speakerboxxx/The Love Below OutKast

Released: September 23, 2003 Charted: October 11, 2003 Peak: 17 US, 11 RB, 8 UK, 4 CN, 9 AU Sales (in millions): 5.5 US, 0.6 UK, 7.62 world (includes US and UK) Genre: rap

Speakerboxxx: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Intro [1:29] Ghetto Musick (Benjamin/ Gamble/ Patton/ Sigler) [3:56] (7/15/03, 93 RB) Unhappy (Patton/ Sheats) [3:19] Bowtie (with Sleepy Brown & Jazze Pha) (Alexander/ Brown/ Patton) [3:56] The Way You Move (with Sleepy Brown) (Brown/ Mahone/ Patton) [3:54] (9/13/03, 1 US, 7 UK, 2 RB) The Rooster (Mahone/ Mathis/ Patton) [3:57] Bust (with Killer Mike) (Crenshaw/ Patton/ Render) [3:08] War (Benjamin/ Patton/ Sheats) [2:43] Church (Benjamin/ Brown/ Crenshaw/ Kendricks/ Patton) [3:27] Bamboo (Interlude) (?) [2:09] Tomb of the Boom (with Konkrete, Big Gipp, & Ludacris) (Andrews/ Bridges/ Elder/ Gipp/ Patton/ Patton) [4:46] E-Mac (Interlude) (?) [0:24] Knowing (Patton) [3:32] Flip Flop Rock (with Killer Mike & Jay-Z) (Carter/ Patton/ Render/ Sheats) [4:35] Interlude [1:15] Reset (with Khujo Goodie & Cee-Lo) (Burton/ Knighton/ Patton) [4:35] D-Boi (Interlude) (?) [0:40] Last Call (with Slimm Calhoun, Lil’ Jon, & Mello) (Benjamin/ Hollins/ Loving/ Patton) [3:57] Bowtie (Postlude) (Alexander/ Brown/ Patton) [0:34] The Love Below: The Love Below (intro) [1:27] Love Hater (Benjamin/ Kendricks) [2:49] God (Interlude) [2:20] Happy Valentine’s Day [5:23] Spread [3:51] Where Are My Panties? [1:54] Prototype [5:26] (12/6/03, 63 RB) She Lives in My Lap (with Rosario Dawson) (Benjamin/ Dennis/ Hawkins/ Hayes/ Jordan/ King/ Troutman/ Vidal) [4:27] Hey Ya! [3:55] (10/18/03, 1 US, 6 UK, 9 RB, 16 MR) Roses (Benjamin/ Boykin/ Patton) [6:09] (3/6/04, 9 US, 4 UK, 12 RB) Good Day, Good Sir [1:24] Behold a Lady [4:37] Pink & Blue (Benjamin/ Kelly) [5:04] Love in War [3:25] She’s Alive (Benjamin/ Kendricks) [4:06] Dracula’s Wedding (with Kelis) [2:32] My Favorite Things (with Norah Jones) [5:13] Take Off Your Cool [2:38] Vibrate [6:33] A Life in the Day of Benjamin André (Incomplete) [5:11] Songs on The Love Below written by André Benjamin unless noted otherwise. Total Running Time: 1:34:39

Rating: 4.174 out of 5.00 (average of 28 ratings) Quotable: “Among the best hip-hop and best pop music released this decade” – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “To call OutKast’s follow-up to their 2000 masterpiece Stankonia the most eagerly awaited hip-hop album of the new millennium may be hyperbole, but not by much. In its kaleidoscopic, deep-fried amalgam of Dirty South, dirty funk, techno, and psychedelia, Stankonia was fearlessly exploratory and giddy with possibilities. It was hard to imagine where the duo was going to go next.” AMG What few would have predicted is that the duo of André 3000 and Big Boi would split. The duo had always been “defined by dichotomies — regional versus celestial, order amid chaos, blackness and the universal. On their fifth studio album, that tension could no longer be contained on one CD.” RS’20 So they each made their own album and then packaged them as a double from OutKast. It is “kind of like if the Beatles issued The White Album as one LP of Lennon tunes, the other of McCartney songs.” AMG Each album has its “own distinct character” AMG and “may be more coherent,” AMG but the effect is to “diminish the idea of OutKast slightly, since the focus is on the individuals, not the group.” AMG Still, “both records are visionary, imaginative listens, providing some of the best music of 2003.” AMG One would expect Big Boi’s Speakerboxxx to be more conventional and André 3000’s The Love Below to be more experimental, but it doesn’t quite play out that way. AMG From the moment Speakerboxxx kicks into gear with GhettoMusick and its relentless blend of old-school 808s and breakneck breakbeats, it's clear that Boi is ignoring boundaries, and the rest of his album follows suit.” AMG “Big Boi’s verbal funk overflowed on Speakerboxxx,” RS’20 and it’s grounded firmly within hip-hop, but the beats bend against the grain and the arrangements are overflowing with ideas and thrilling, unpredictable juxtapositions.” AMG “Bowtie swings like big-band jazz filtered through George Clinton.” AMG With its “slick talk and soulful horns” RS’20 “The Way You Move offsets its hard-driving verses with seductive choruses” AMG and “The Rooster cheerfully rides a threatening minor-key mariachi groove, salted by slippery horns and loose-limbed wah-wah guitars. It’s a hell of a ride, reclaiming the adventurous spirit of the golden age and pushing it into a new era.” AMG “By contrast, The Love Below isn’t so much visionary as it is unapologetically eccentric. And as the cocktail jazz pianos that sparkle through the first few songs indicate, it’s not much of a hip-hop album.” AMG “André 3000’s inner crooner exhaled like never before” RS’20 while he creates “the great lost Prince album – the platter that the Purple One recorded somewhere between Around the World in a Day and Sign ‘O’ the Times.” AMG For example, “She Lives in My Lap is a close relation of the B-side ‘She's Always in My Hair.’” AMG The difference is that “Prince was tortured; André is trying to get laid. That cheerfully randy spirit surges through The Love Below, even on the spooky-serious closer, A Life in the Day of Benjamin Andre, and it gives André the freedom to try a little of everything, from mock crooning on Love Haters to a breakbeat jazz interpretation of My Favorite Things to the strange one-man funk of Roses and the incandescent” AMG and “borderless pop bliss of Hey Ya!,” RS’20 “where classic soul and electro-funk coexist happily.” AMG In the end, while the records “are very different, but…they both feel thoroughly like OutKast music.” AMG The two albums “wind up sounding unified because they share the same freewheeling aesthetic, where everything is alive and everything is possible within their music. That spirit fuels not just the best hip-hop, but the best pop music.” AMG The pair of albums “are among the best hip-hop and best pop music released this decade.” AMG

Resources and Related Links: AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine RS’20 Rolling Stone (9/22/2020). “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/29/2008; last updated 10/17/2023.

OutKast hit #1 with “Ms. Jackson”

Ms. Jackson OutKast

Writer(s): André Benjamin, Antwan Patton, David Sheats (see lyrics here) Released: October 24, 2000 First Charted: October 28, 2000 Peak: 11 US, 14 RR, 12 RB, 2 UK, 9 CN, 2 AU, 19 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 1.2 UK, 5.26 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 313.21 video, 856.0 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: André “André 3000” Benjamin and Antwan “Big Boi” Patton formed the hip-hop duo OutKast in Atlanta in 1992. They released their first album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, in 1994 and became a critical and commercial favorite at the forefront of the Southern rap movement. They “posed as laid-back gangsters, but they rapped dense thickets of words with rare levels of nuance and empathy, and playfulness.” SG They “may be remembered as hip-hop pioneers not for their outlandish clothes or for their hard beats or even their psychedelic jams, but for their humanism.” TC In 2000, their fourth album, Stankonia, became the duo’s third consecutive album to peak at #2 on the Billboard album chart and go multi-platinum. The group had previously had just two songs reach the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100. “B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad),” the lead single from their fourth album, Stankonia, didn’t change their fortunes any. It served as a “metaphor for the group’s bombastic potency” TB but failed to chart. However, the next single, “Ms. Jackson,” not only gave OutKast their first top-ten hit on the pop charts, but it went all the way to #1. The song “strips the group of a considerable amount of its machismo.” TB It is “a relatively low-key affair…rendered through wordily heartfelt writing and hazily funky music.” The group weren’t aiming for a crossover hit “though sheer novelty, through party-ready catchiness, [or] through immediate-bellringer samples” SG like previous #1 songs from rappers. OutKast “just made a slinky, memorable song about a real situation, and that song arrived at the exact right moment.” SG The “ode to their babymama’s mamas” TB is a mix of real-life experiences from both rappers. André 3000 and the singer Erykah Badu had a relationship for a few years and even had a son together. André essentially uses the song to try to explain himself to her mother, writing the chorus as an apology. However, Big Boi’s “verses come from a place of hurt and resentment” SG as he scolds his ex’s mother that “her grandchild is a baby and not a paycheck.” SG Resources: TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Page 666. SG Stereogum (9/9/2022). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 293. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 6/24/2023.

OutKast released Stankonia

Stankonia OutKast

Released: October, 31, 2000 Charted: November 18, 2000 Peak: 2 US, 2 RB, 10 UK, 4 CN, 33 AU Sales (in millions): 4.0 US, 0.1 UK, 7.0 world (includes US and UK) Genre: rap

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Intro Gasoline Dreams (with Khujo Goodie & Goodie Mob) I’m Cool (Interlude) So Fresh, So Clean (12/16/00, 24a US, 45 RR, 10 RB, 16 UK) Ms. Jackson (10/28/00, 1 US, 14 RR, 1 RB, 2 UK, 9 CN, 2 AU) Snappin’ & Trappin’ (with Killer Mike & J Sweet) D.F. (Interlude) Spaghetti Junction Kim & Cookie (Interlude) I’ll Call Before I Come (with Gangsta Boo & Eco) B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad) (9/23/00, 58a RB, 61 UK) Xplosion (with B-Real) Good Hair (Interlude) We Luv Deez Hoez (with Backbone & Bigg Gipp) Humble Mumble (with Erykah Badu) Drinking Again (Interlude) ? Red Velvet Cruisin’ in the ATL (Interlude) Gangsta Shit Toilet Tisha (with C-Lo & Goodie Mob) Slum Beautiful Pre-Nup (Interlude) Stankonia (Stanklove) Total Running Time: 73:07 The Players: André 3000 (vocals, snythesizers, guitar, production) Big Boi (vocals, production) Mr. DJ (production)

Rating: 4.277 out of 5.00 (average of 14 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “Stankonia was OutKast’s second straight masterstroke, an album just as ambitious, just as all-over-the-map, and even hookier than its predecessor.” AMG “There’s a thrilling sprawl…a sense of limitless possibilities within the boundaries of hip-hop.” RS’20 “With producers Organized Noize playing a diminished role, Stankonia reclaims the duo’s futuristic bent. Keyboardist/producer Earthtone III helms most of the backing tracks, and while the live-performance approach is still present, there’s more reliance on programmed percussion, otherworldly synthesizers, and surreal sound effects. Yet the results are surprisingly warm and soulful, a trippy sort of techno-psychedelic funk. Every repeat listen seems to uncover some new element in the mix, but most of the songs have such memorable hooks that it’s easy to stay diverted.” AMG On“High Times, man of the millenium Big Boi and jodhpur-wearing thespian André 3000 have to bridge aesthetic galaxies just to make small talk, so it’s no surprise that their musical partnership, which started in high school, yielded an integrative masterpiece.” TL “The immediate dividends include two of 2000’s best singles.” AMG The first, B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad), “fuses funk, punk, techno, disco, Atari sound effects and a gospel choir into a millenial dance party.” TL “The music is sexy, bold, and hard, mixing…distorted metal guitar, an HBCU gospel choir, and a jittery techno beat. Big Boi says OutKast is ‘cooler than a polar bear’s toenails.’” RS’20 This “is the fastest of several tracks built on jittery drum’n’bass rhythms, but André and Big Boi keep up with awe-inspiring effortlessness.” AMG “‘We call it slumadelic,’ said André 3000.” RS’20 The other big single is “Ms. Jackson, which “is an anguished plea directed at the mother of the mother of an out-of-wedlock child, tinged with regret, bitterness, and affection.” AMG “Its sensitivity and social awareness are echoed in varying proportions elsewhere, from the Public Enemy-style rant Gasoline Dreams” AMG about “feeling excluded from the American dream.” RS’20 “The fluid rhymes (‘Speeches only reaches those who already know about it/This is how we go about it’) ground Stankonia in rap, but it’s the soul singing in the chorus that makes Ms. Jackson so tender and the jagged guitar riff that makes ‘Gasoline Dreams’ so hard.” TL There’s also “the heartbreaking suicide tale Toilet Tisha” AMG which discusses “the trauma of teen pregnancy.” RS’20 There are also songs about “good manners (I’ll Call Before I Come),” RS’20 and “the perils of sex (We Luv Deez Hoez) and alcohol (?).” RS’20 “The group also returns to its roots for some of the most testosterone-drenched material since their debut. Then again, OutKast doesn’t take its posturing too seriously, which is why they can portray women holding their own, or make bizarre boasts about being So Fresh, So Clean.” AMG “Given the variety of moods, it helps that the album is broken up by brief, usually humorous interludes, which serve as a sort of reset button. It takes a few listens to pull everything together, but given the immense scope, it’s striking how few weak tracks there are. It’s no wonder Stankonia consolidated OutKast’s status as critics’ darlings, and began attracting broad new audiences: its across-the-board appeal and ambition overshadowed nearly every other pop album released in 2000.” AMG

Resources and Related Links: AMG All Music Guide review by Steve Huey RS’20 Rolling Stone (9/22/2020). “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” TL Time (11/3/06). “All-TIME 100 Albums” by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/20/2010; last updated 4/21/2022.