André said it in '95: "The South got something to say, that's all I got to say." Aquemini was that something. Booed upon receiving the "Best Newcomer" prize at the 1995 Source awards, there's no doubt OutKast battled hard for universal respect early in their career. Their debut, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, was about as hard for rap fans to digest as it was for them to learn how to pronounce it - which is understandable, considering it was released a mere week after hip-hop's bible, Illmatic, was. Hip-hop was back to the East Coast, and with one of hip-hop's most timeless albums fresh on people's hands, why were two 19-year old kids from Atlanta winning instead of Nas? Or Biggie? Whilst just about every corner of the States ended up releasing a classic or three in the 1990's, it seemed that only The Source recognized OutKast for what they were at the time.
The music was funkier, the lyrics crazier, and for André 3000, the outfits wackier. After his and Big Boi's '96 sophomore effort, ATLiens, people began to question what OutKast were really going on about. "First they was pimps, then they was some aliens or some genies or some shit.” This didn't go unnoticed by the pair, which is why they recorded the opening track 'Return Of The G'. "Then the question is Big Boi what's up with André? / Is he in a cult? Is he on drugs? Is he gay?" raps André, effortlessly turning the doubters upside down in what Talib Kweli considers the 5th greatest verse of all time; "Nigga I'm feelin' better than ever what's wrong with you / You get down!" He might dress up as creatively as Lady Gaga, and rap about aliens and outer space, but that doesn't mean he's not as hard as he was when he rapped about being a gangster in '94. Big Boi backs him up, also; Big recieved less criticism than André did after ATLiens for being "weird", but nobody was going to fuck with his musical partner and get away with it. After the opener, Aquemini continues as a jazzy, soulful, beautiful piece of art, but at the same time a daunting one as well. Standing at 75 minutes, OutKast had the breathing room to expand and experiment with the music they where creating - half of the tracks are longer than five minutes in length, one seven minutes, and one almost nine minutes. Each track has it's own musical highlight; whether it's the irresistibly catchy trumpet on 'SpottieOttieDopaliscious', the wonderful piano on 'Liberation' & 'Da Art Of Storytellin', Pt. 2', the bass on 'Aquemini' & 'Mamacita', the fantastic electric guitar screeching on 'Chonkyfire', or even the fun country-sounding bridge on 'Rosa Parks'. And not one moment of it is dull - every song is alive with it's own energy and character. Unlike their debut, where the duo produced none of the beats, Aquemini explores André & Big Boi becoming not only great M.C's, but great musicians - even more so than they dabbled with on ATLiens. 'Skew It On The Bar-B' perhaps did more to earn the South any Eastern credibility than any OutKast song - featuring none other than Raekwon The Chef. The first non-Dungeon family feature on an OutKast album, the spoken intro by Rae sees him co-signing the "funky shit" that OutKast have become famous for. He sounds damn good rapping over an OutKast beat too - his verse his short, but is still fantastic, considering the year is 1998 and the Wu-Tang Clan are no longer at full steam as they were in 1995. At this point, the hooks were something Big Boi was focusing on heavily (eventually penning the choruses on their majorly successful singles) and the hook on 'Skew It On The Bar-B' is perhaps one of the best on Aquemini. The middle of the album features the funkiest of the tracks - 'West Savannah', is "a little tune that we composed back on the first album", brought to life again for Aquemini. It's Big Boi's love-child - André doesn't rap on this track. It does remind me of Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, and the chorus is definitely more 1994-OutKast than it is 1998- "Nine in my hand, ounce in my crotch / diggin' the scene with a gangsta slouch". The track doesn't stick out like a sore thumb though - you'd expect it to, being an older song, but it fits perfectly with the songs around it in the tracklisting; 'Slump', & 'Da Art Of Storytellin', Pt. 1'. 'Mamacita', a few tracks later, is the perhaps the weirdest OutKast track you'll hear on this side of the year 2000 - the chorus is simply "Mamacita! Papadonna!" mesmerized between Masada, the femcee who performs the opening verse on the song, & Rico Wade, a member of OutKast's production crew and Dungeon Family member. The beat is slow and formidable - the bass is strong enough to burst the drivers out of your speakers, and the pianos are horror-movie menacing. Pair this track with the very strange hook, and the eccentric voice of Witchdoctor, the last collaborator on this track, adds up to a song hard to stomach at first. But it's definitely a grower. The longest track, 'Liberation' with Cee-Lo Green, is a fantastic ballad. 8:46 long, André performs some of his earliest sung material, contrary to rapping. Cee-Lo sings with an incredible amount of passion - so much so, that his voice starts breaking, and starts reminding me of Axl Rose. Erykah Badu has an uncredited verse, which is slow and softly song, followed then by Big Rube's spoken word outro to the album - just as he did the same on '13th Floor' from ATLiens. There's no better instrumental they could have picked for him to speak over - the piano on this track is fantastic, and has one of the best extended outros I've ever heard on any song, period. But OutKast couldn't have let their album end without a "bust your shit open beat", and that's exactly what the final track is. 'Chonkyfire' is arguably OutKast's best beat. It's a 180 degree turn from the song before it, ending the album with spectacular energy - electric guitars don't often send shivers up my spine like they do on this track. The violins somehow are on par with the drums in terms of punch - don't ask me how that works - and they kick forward perfectly, breaking only for Big Boi's verse. While Big raps, the instrumental drops back to mostly the piano backing, but as soon as André comes back in with the hook the beat turns right back up to where it was. The final words we hear from the duo on Aquemini go like this: "the south got something to say, that's all I got to say." The circle is complete - booed to those words in 1995, to ending a classic with them in 1998. |
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