That being said, boredom encouraged both members of OutKast to view their next album as an audacious experiment. Differences in appearance and changing lifestyles ― André was no longer eating meat, smoking marijuana, or drinking alcohol ― didn’t affect his musical chemistry with Big Boi at all. They were something of an odd couple André’s image was no longer Atlanta Brave jerseys and basketball shorts like in their early music videos, and his fashion-forward attires ― ranging from white wigs to football shoulder pads ― were perceived as extravagant compared to his partner’s effortless, contemporary cool. With success came skeptics who questioned if the group could maintain their synergy.
All accomplished without minimizing their Southern individuality in a hip-hop still dominated by rappers from the East and West coasts. The pair entered the year 2000 no longer coming-of-age, but two fully grown men with acclaim from critics, the support of radio, visibility on television, two Platinum albums, and a Grammy nomination for “Rosa Parks,” the lead single off Aquemini. At 25 years old, the former high school classmates-turned-rap partners were no longer the babyface pupils discovered, groomed, and developed in the early 1990s by Atlanta production trio Organized Noize. “You know where the kicks are gonna fall, you know where the snares are gonna fall,” he elaborates, “You see the same thing.” His criticism against predictable hip-hop speaks to where André’s mind was during the making of Stankonia: In search of adventurous soundscapes and surprising lyricism.ĭo remember, this is André and Big Boi six years and three albums into their music careers. “Right now, it’s 1999, it’s time to get extreme,” André 3000 says, using the word “boring” to describe how formulaic mainstream rap had become. Undoubtedly, OutKast at their most extreme.įollowing the ’98 release of Aquemini and receiving a historic five-mic review in ’90s hip-hop bible The Source Magazine, OutKast were interviewed by Joe Clair on BET’s defunct hip-hop show Rap City. Every second detonates with explosive verses, earworm hooks, and barrier-breaking production. The stillness of their stances fails to encapsulate how the 24-song, 74-minute magnum opus doesn’t stop moving. Unlike the cover art for their 1998 third studio album, Aquemini, which reimagined the two rap stars as radiant mystics, Stankonia strips away vibrancy and comic book illustration for subtle imagery. André, who stands upright, has no shirt, posing with his mouth slightly ajar, arms stretched forward, and fingers spread wide as if a pianist or puppeteer.īehind them, in a monochrome shade of black and white, is an inverted American flag. Big Boi, who stands with a lean, wears a plain white T-shirt, a diamond-encrusted ‘DF’ necklace, and the mug of a man who reveals nothing, not even his teeth. Atlanta rappers Antwan “Big Boi” Patton and André “André 3000” Benjamin, best known as the Southern hip-hop duo OutKast, did not appear as disruptors of reality, or deities of pop culture on the cover of their fourth studio album, Stankonia.
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