OutKast would take home the Grammy for Best Rap Performance in 2002 for the song and it turned them into something they hadn’t been up to that point in their career: bonafide pop stars. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, and top charts in Germany, Norway and Sweden. Jackson,” a song that served as both an apology to and an admonishing of an ex-girlfriend’s mother. So it never made much of a chart impact due to lack of radio support, but wound up on virtually every “Best of” list at the end of the year and at the end of the decade.īut the second single, released just weeks before the album, was the inescapable hit “Ms. The title, an acronym for “Bombs Over Baghdad,” led to many mainstream radio stations not playing the single out of fear that there was an anti-Islamic message due to President Bill Clinton’s bombing of Iraq in December 1998 during Operation Desert Fox. “B.O.B.” had garnered tremendous acclaim, but amazingly failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100.
Stankonia became one of the most bootlegged albums of that year and there had to be changes made to the album prior to release because piracy was so high on then-popular downloading sites like Napster. Jackson” only made the public appetite for this new album more insatiable. There were high expectations for their first creative statement of the new millennium and singles like “B.O.B.” and “Ms. OutKast’s previous albums, the acclaimed and groundbreaking ATLiens and Aquemini, had made them critical darlings in hip-hop and wider circles. Luda’s major label debut, Back For the First Time dropped just weeks before Stankonia hit stores.īut Stankonia was extremely highly-anticipated amongst hip-hop fans. Ludacris had been primed for a breakthrough since the 1999 release of his indie debut Incognegro and Lil Jon’s second album We Still Crunk!! had netted him his first taste of real visibility in hip-hop circles. In the six years between southernplayalistic… and Stankonia, Atlanta’s hip-hop scene had gone from up-and-coming to on the verge of explosion. What followed was increased visibility for ATL hip-hop, with fellow Dungeon Family mainstays Goodie MOB emerging in 1995, Witchdoctor and Cool Breeze following a few years later, and the rise of Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz, who’s brand of crunk would soon take over mainstream radio and clubs. A city that had seen some success with bass music and chart-topping acts like Kris Kross and Arrested Development, Atlanta hadn’t really asserted its own cultural voice into the national hip-hop space until the teenaged Andre (not yet 3000) and Big Boi showed up, rocking Kangols and Braves jerseys while rapping about Cadillacs and MARTA. Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, the pair’s debut album, was a landmark for southern hip-hop in general but especially for hip-hop coming out of Atlanta. ‘Kast had played a huge role in kicking down hip-hop’s bicoastal door back in 1994. OutKast once again kicked down doors with Stankonia. Many would disagree with that sentiment, but it’s not hard to see both why the album was so polarizing in certain quarters and why it’s so important now. It’s specific legacy is a bit complicated because it’s critical acclaim sometimes overshadows the mixed feelings it engendered in some of group’s early fans, who thought the duo was aiming too hard for crossover success and found the album less resonate and unfocused. Stankonia was OutKast’s fourth album and became a huge success. Their legacy was cemented long before Y2K, but that was the year they released their big, mainstream breakthrough album. Each album was like a reinvention of their sound and aesthetic-but not so much so that you couldn’t still hear the enthusiasm of two dope boys from Atlanta in every forward-looking production. Nostalgia can distort pretty much anything, but it’s no distortion to declare OutKast the most creatively fearless mainstream hip-hop group of all time their discography holds up amazingly well and is still stunningly diverse.
The duo of Andre 3000 and Big Boi aren’t really a thing anymore-despite their well-received reunion shows last year. OutKast is one of hip-hop’s most beloved acts for a reason.
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