Outkast had already covered a tremendous amount of stylistic ground in an era where rap acts were barely expected to grow and evolve, let alone reinvent themselves. Only De La Soul may have been Outkast’s sole analogue in rap, having grown from teenage prodigies to world-weary artists - much as Andre and Big Boi had evolved from proto D-boys to poetic champions of the South’s hip-hop’s potential.īut these groups’ paths would diverge on album #4: where Radiohead ran away from rock orthodoxy and De La Soul used Stakes Is High to transition fully into an adulthood that was a poor fit for pop success, Outkast’s Stankonia would turn out to be their most beloved album yet, their most exploratory, but also their most rooted in their home base of Atlanta. Radiohead had similarly grown from genre outliers to scene leaders to transformative voices of a generation, but that model had already been tested for rock. While Arrested Development had proven southern hip-hop acts could move units, and Outkast’s peers A Tribe Called Quest had explored a rich vein of rap balancing bohemian accessibility to street credibility, the Atlanta duo’s hairpin turns and evolutionary leaps across three albums and six years had few parallels. With their 5-Mic reviewed, double-platinum classic Aquemini in the rearview mirror, Outkast were in a rarefied space not just for Hip Hop, but for any act on a major label in the late 90’s. Son Raw will turn your pound cake to red velvet. Do you really wanna hear about some gangsta shit? Subscribe to Passion of the Weiss on Patreon.