OutKast
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
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OutKast
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
Arista, 2003
RiYL: Prince, Parliament, Jimi Hendrix, Curtis Mayfield |
The new OutKast album raises a lot of questions, not the least of which is: will it be their last? But here's what we do know: as of now, OutKast is still a functioning entity, one which has earned the status as one of the all-time great rap groups over the course of four stellar records. The duo's fifth, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, is a double-album, with a separate effort conceived and constructed by each member: Big Boi and Andre 3000, respectively.
And my, are they different.
OutKast's foundation has always been the dichotomy of its two members -- Big Boi and Andre, the player and the poet. The group's breakthrough third album Aquemini was a celebration of the pair's zodiac signs Aquarius and Gemini. But they always existed side by side, and in any given song, the two were able to express different viewpoints to enlighten and entertain the listener.
This approach reached a fever pitch on the group's 2000 multiflavored hip-hop stew of an album, Stankonia. But for its follow-up, they chose a different path -- each was to individually create an entire album, with little help from the other, splitting the OutKast personality down the middle and giving the public a clear view of the rawest expression each member was capable of.
Big Boi's Speakerboxxx is the album you knew he could make -- bangin' beats, top-draw guest appearances, addictive horn breaks, and of course, the unimitable rapid-fire rhyming style of Mr. Antwan Patterson. His strongest moment is the lead-off track, "Ghettomusick," an inferno of skittery beats, machine-gun choruses, tempo shifts, well-placed samples and memorable raps. Other highlights include the steady-pumping first single "The Way You Move," the laid-back social commentary "Unhappy" and the ramshackle, horn-drenched "The Rooster," which chronicles Big Boi's home life, juggling single fathership and his addiction to the "wax, tapes, and CDs" that are his livelihood.
Speakerboxxx is almost a great OutKast album by itself. Its flow gets a bit choppy, but the sheer amount of innovation and memorable hooks make up for that. The one thing it really lacks is a healthy dose of Andre, and Big Boi seems to concede as much, peppering his lyrics with references to the fact that the two are on good terms and OutKast is not finished. Still, flaws aside, Speakerboxxx more than lives up to its billing.
Andre 3000's The Love Below, however, is a revelation. As he told the New York Times, he didn't so much make a hip-hop album as an album made by a hip-hop person. The record contains charged electro-funk, sex romps a la mid-'80s Prince, breezy acoustic ballads, haunted-house themes and cabaret experiments. Lyrically, the whole album is predictably love-themed, but the precocious Andre stretches within his boundaries, from the explicitly erotic "Spread" to the sentimental "Take Off Your Cool" (with Norah Jones) to the biting send-off "Roses." He also gets cartoonish on the electro-vamp "Dracula's Wedding" and the funked-up "Happy Valentine's Day," on which he plays the part of a modern-day gangsta Cupid, aiming his pink gun to blast playas off the street and onto the altar.
He waxes personal on the album-closing freestyle "A Day In The Life Of Benjamin Andre," but the most advanced tracks on The Love Below are its two centerpieces: bubbly first single "Hey Ya!," on which Andre plays acoustic guitar and keyboards and programs the beat, and the flawlessly constructed "Roses," which has a little bit of just about everything that makes OutKast great -- it's the only song on either album to feature rap verses by both Andre and Big Boi.
So really, we get two great OutKast albums for the price of one: one that reminds us of what makes the old OutKast so good, and the other which hints at future possibilities. The only disappointing thing about Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is the splitting of the band members. Is Andre really, as rumors have suggested, planning a move to Los Angeles to work on an acting career? Will that disband the group? Again, the questions arise. I guess the best way to deal with it is to listen to both albums and revel in their excellence. If this is the last OutKast record, the world will have lost one of rap's shining stars. But whatever the future holds, the fifth chapter in the book of OutKast adds admirably to the group's legacy.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.