Deep Album Cuts Vol. 215: Outkast
The 20th anniversary of Stankonia a few weeks ago brought a wave of Outkast nostalgia, and it looks like there'll be even more with the announcement that Outkast will be doing a Verzuz battle with A Tribe Called Quest soon.
2. Ain't No Thang
3. Crumblin' Erb featuring Sleepy Brown and Brandon Bennett
4. Phobia featuring Big Rube
5. Two Dope Boyz (In A Cadillac) featuring Peaches
6. Ova Da Wudz featuring Witchdoctor
7. Wheelz Of Steel
8. SpottieOttieDopaliscious featuring Sleepy Brown
9. Y'All Scared featuring T-Mo, Big Gipp and Khujo
10. Sole Sunday with Goodie Mob
11. Humble Mumble featuring Erykah Badu
12. Cruisin' In The ATL (Interlude) featuring Southside Soul
13. Red Velvet
14. Slum Beautiful featuring Cee-Lo
15. Funkin' Around featuring Sleepy Brown
16. Bowtie featuring Sleepy Brown and Jazze Pha
17. A Life In The Day Of Benjamin Andre (Incomplete)
18. PJ & Rooster featuring Sleepy Brown
19. BuggFace
Tracks 1, 2 and 3 from Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (1994)
Track 4 from Music From The Motion Picture Higher Learning (1995)
Tracks 5, 6 and 7 from ATLiens (1996)
Tracks 8 and 9 from Aquemini (1998)
Track 10 from Music From The Motion Picture Any Given Sunday (2000)
Tracks 11, 12, 13 and 14 from Stankonia (2000)
Track 15 from Big Boi And Dre Present... Outkast (2001)
Tracks 16 and 17 from Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003)
Tracks 18 and 19 from Idlewild (2006)
I'm really partial to early Outkast -- Southernplayalistic is probably my favorite now, although I didn't really start to hear them or hear about them until ATLiens at the time when I was a kid. Like most people, they were kind of the first southern rap group I took seriously, but now I kind of appreciate them as one of several innovators and have equal respect for UGK, Three 6 Mafia, The Geto Boys, 8Ball & MJG, and Goodie Mob. And the Outkast I like best is when they were still peers of those groups and not yet pop stars. Some of Stankonia and Speakerboxxx has aged well for me -- "Red Velvet" and "Bowtie" are two of my favorite Outkast songs -- but I really just don't have a lot of love for The Love Below or Idlewild. To me, Andre 3000 is at his best when he's rhyming with Big Boi, singer Andre and guest verse Andre are whole different things.
One of the funny moments of doing my piece about "Whores In This House" and Al "T" McLaran is that he didn't even know that Outkast quoted his song, on Big Boi's verse on "Ova Da Wudz." "Myintrotoletuknow" was sampled on Jay-Z's "Rap Game/Crack Game." "Wheelz Of Steel," "Y'All Scared" and "SpottieOttie" were some of the first times anyone heard a reference to "the trap" on a mainstream record, so in a way Outkast even paved the way for the Atlanta rap that's ostensibly the least influenced by Outkast.
I included some soundtrack cuts, although there are more not currently on Spotify that I'd love to include (like "Tough Guy" with UGK from Shaft and "High Schoolin'" with Slimm Calhoun from Light It Up). I also included one of the new songs from their only best-of compilation, , Big Boi And Dre Present... Outkast, which skipped over some singles in favor of album tracks including "Ain't No Thang," "Crumblin' Erb," and "SpottieOttieDopaliscious," which has emerged as their most streamed and most sampled songs over the years. And it really feels like a turning point in Outkast's career that a 7-minute live band vamp where the verses are more spoken word than rap became a fan favorite with no radio play.
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