Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik was a revelation to hip-hop: Two dope boys in a Cadillac rapping just as well as, if not better than, just about anyone around them, sharing untold tales of Atlanta slums and Georgia red clay and opining on race in a way that introduced the concept of the Dirty South a year before theyвЂ™d give it a name with the Goodie Mob. It was the music of Southern hip-hop, the вЂњcountry rap tunesвЂќ pioneered by the late Pimp C, outfitted to a weary worldview that was cautious and specific about local dealings and paranoid about the greater world, but ultimately hopeful on universal levels-or, at least as hopeful as вЂњCrumblinвЂ™ ErbвЂќ while вЂњniggas killinвЂ™ niggasвЂќ can be. DreвЂ™s G-funk stylings, more organic than Puff DaddyвЂ™s wholesale sampling of вЂ™80s R&B, and more fluid and adventurous than hometown icon Jermaine DupriвЂ™s sleek soul and pop arrangements. Their debut was an album bursting with the funk descended from the Isley Brothers, Isaac Hayes, and Curtis Mayfield in a way that was smoother than Dr. Those are weighty statements, but OutKast was OutKast-singular, inimitable, and unpredictable. Their sonic brashness and directness had Public EnemyвЂ™s Chuck D in its DNA, their fashion had antecedents in the Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five meeting Afrika BambaataaвЂ™s Soul Sonic Force, the subversive whimsy of De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest were their forebears, giving the group a musical intensity and breadth incomparable to any other major hip-hop act before or since. Their voices spat out harsh rhymes and stretched out melodic moments, but they also spoke about things widely and deeply, respecting and commenting on everything going on hip-hop, largely by ignoring everything going on in hip-hop. All of their albums began with a disembodied intro track as a prelude, followed by a State of the OutKast declaration that proved that, as AndrГ© would famously go on to say at the 1995 Source Awards, вЂњthe South got something to say.вЂќ Tellingly, AndrГ© confessed, вЂњI gots a lot of shit up on my mind,вЂќ on вЂњMyintrotoletuknowвЂќ from their 1994 debut Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. Identity and location-and defining and observing the two on their own terms-have always been key with OutKast. Big Boi exhaled smoke and lamented, вЂњNiggas ainвЂ™t even from the A-Town.вЂќ On the intro to Stankonia-their fourth album, a thrill-pushing auricular splattering of mindfunks and ideascapes-they mimicked those copying them by playfully reinterpreting the Atlanta вЂњbounceвЂќ that had been spreading as the distraction of babies. after having been out of vogue for years. They had emerged from southwest Atlanta with styles that were unforeseen, but quickly copied-the Kangol hats they wore in the video for вЂњSouthernplayalisticadillacmuzikвЂќ were soon seen atop the domes of Sean вЂњDiddyвЂќ Combs and the Notorious B.I.G. They were AndrГ© вЂњ3000вЂќ Benjamin and Antwan вЂњ Big BoiвЂќ Patton, but they went by an increasing array of colorful names-like Possum Aloysius Jenkins and Daddy Fat Sax-which seemed to exist only to expand minds and expectations while capturing the ideas that emanated from their craniums. They always had chips on their shoulders, a grievance born of their distinctive authorship mixed with the civic pride of scrappy underdogs.

Outkast stankonia full album