Outkast

Aquemini serves as an aesthetic bridge between the muddy Southern rap of earlier Outkast albums and the deeper, more experimental waters they would tread in later years. The rootsy "Rosa Parks" segues into the tingly dub of "SpottieOttie…" before giving way to the tragic narrative of "Da Art of Storytelling Pt.1." One of the most ambitious albums of the 1990s.

Confederate loyalists probably had something different in mind when they said, "The South
shall rise again." But their prophecy seems to have been fulfilled in the form of Master P,
Goodie Mob and OutKast, three Southern rap acts whose appeal extends well beyond their
region. Representing Atlanta to the fullest, OutKast prove that you don't have to sell out to
sell records. Their first two albums, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (1994) and A... More >

If Dre and Big Boi were addressing real "real life situations" on Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik or ATLiens, they were drawling too unreconstructedly for any Yankee to tell. This time they're clearly about babies making babies in a place with enough nature around for that kind of biology to seem like destiny. The blackstrap flow of their live slow jams ends up an evolved G-funk with denser instrumental crosstalk, no less street for putting organ rumble or soundtrack keyb where the eerie tweedie used to be. But even so the music's Southernness signifies as rural, evoking Booker T., endless Gregg Allman ballads, humid afternoons with horseflies droning over the hog wallow. Uncosmopolitan enough to call choruses "hooks" no matter what RZA thinks, OutKast probably would have quit dealing even if said hooks didn't get bought. And if not, they would have told some unheroic, untragic stories about it. (Grade - A-)