According to the album's opening lyrics, "Stankonia" is the name of a fictional land at "the center of the earth, seven light years below sea level", which is "the place from which all 'funky thangs' come.” Take Mos Def's willingness to experiment, Common's intelligence and Kool Keith's futuristic rhymes and thread it together with some southern fried Atlanta funk and some complex concepts on life, and you get a rather simplistic if passable description of what you might find on this album.
Reviewing an album like this feels strange. I feel like it's larger than life, definitely larger than whatever praise I can give it, even though there are plenty of filler tracks. The idea of Stankonia and the novelty behind it are what make this album amazing, not the solid flow of each track, or the cohesiveness of it all. This is the album with B.O.B., Ms. Jackson, So Fresh So clean, but this is also the album with Spaghetti Junction, Gasoline Dreams, and Humble Mumble, etc. Tracks that never made it to the radio but continue to amaze me to this day. The attitude behind it all is what drives it home though. These two boys have ambition that is off the charts.
Stankonia is a showcase for what was lost when Big Boi and Andre 3000 decided they needed to work separately. While Big Boi is certainly the more adept and impressive rapper of the duo, Andre 3000's weirdness and laconic charm made OutKast into an intriguing balancing act, two divergent artists working off each others' strengths. Big Boi's sharpened-to-a-fine-point style plays especially sharp in contrast to Andre's rolling, more R&B-based style. Their quasi-disbandment also seemed to move them away from their analysis of a larger world beyond themselves. On Stankonia they were especially political, starting with the fierce bump of "Gasoline Dreams" which advocates 'burn, motherfucker, burn American dreams,' and of course all the scattered imagery of "B.O.B." (which serves up an interesting metaphorical image with 'Weatherman telling us it ain't gonna rain, so now we sittin' in a drop-top soaking wet').
B.O.B. and Ms. Jackson provide us with two very distinct extremes, and this leads to an experiment that most big name groups are not willing to try simply because they have way too much to lose. How many odes to a baby momma's momma have you heard? Let alone one with more conviction than ‘Mrs. Jackson’? It may not sound like too touching of subject matter, but that’s the catch, they tackle the situation with both tongue-in-cheek lyrics and sincerity. The somber effect-ridden beat trudges along, sparsely backed by synths and keys during the hook, which are another focal point in OutKast’s attack; Andre croons his apologies to the song’s namesake, shades of the catchy, poppy direction he decided to go with later on his section of the latest release. But with B.O.B., we once again find ourselves staring at OutKast’s other face. B.O.B.(Bombs Over Bagdad) is drum ‘n bass assault at a frantic pace with perhaps one of the best guitar solos in hip hop history. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this track, though, is the rapid-fire delivery our favorite duo. B.O.B. is the kind of song that gave OutKast the reputation as one of the best live shows hip hop had to offer, as they, along with contemporaries such as The Roots and Black Eyed Peas(Before they turned into the auto-tuned shit eaters they are today. Back then they also didn't have a barbie doll that's spent too much time in an easy-back oven for their female lead.) among others began to implement live instrumentation into their acts, which is still horribly under utilized within hip hop recordings.
At the heart of OutKast are the polar opposites. At the heart of the polar opposites for OutKast, is Andre and Big Boi. The reason OutKast has been so successful is because each plays off the other so perfectly and the result can be quite magnificent in terms of music in general and not just hip hop, as exemplified by both Aquemini and Stankonia. If today, OutKast decided to split (for good) right now, as much speculation (which is probably just that) might lead us to think, you’d be hard pressed to convince me that OutKast produced a better album than this. Speakerboxx/The Love Below is a great piece of work but you know what hurts it? The ‘/.’
Best Songs
B.O.B.
Ms. Jackson
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