2000 Rewind: Remembering Outkast’s Stankonia

Y’all ready to relive Y2K? All year long the Rewind column will revisit the year 2000, celebrating great releases that will mark 25 years in 2025. I’ll be joined by a host of old friends as we look back at a new millennium of music.

Halloween 2000 wound up being the stankiest night of the year – that was the day Outkast released their fourth album upon the world. Outkast may have been well-known rap stars by this time, but it was Stankonia that truly shot them to the legendary status they enjoy today. But how did that come about? Ronald Grant is back once again to help me review this turning point in Outkast’s career.

Share your memories of when you first heard this project.

Ron: You know the drill, Edd. Once again, this is an album I associate heavily with either my senior year of high school or freshman year in college. Specifically, I remember that a friend of mine at Oakland University had connections with a few local Detroit radio and music industry folks and organized an album listening party on campus a few days before the album dropped. After the 5-mic triumph of Aquemini, I was licking my chops for Stankonia. Listening to the album at the party, I was shocked that it seemed like such a departure from the previous album: it was darker, louder, faster, more manic, more chaotic and more bombastic. Yet it still had those signature pinches of lush funky Southern soulfulness. I wasn’t expecting another Aquemini, but I definitely wasn’t expecting this. But, prior to that, I also remember falling in love with the video for “B.O.B.” as it was played relentlessly on BET and MTV. Overall, I was astonished at how 3000 and Big Boi gave middle finger to what worked for them before and dove headfirst into the wild experimentation that was Stankonia. To me, they made an album that, 25 years later, still sounds 25 years ahead of its time.

Edd: While this album was shaping the homie Ron’s late high school/early college days, I’m the old head of the crew so Stankonia served as the soundtrack of the final few months of my college career. I don’t remember if I copped it on release day or picked up in the following weeks but Stankonia was a fixture in my Honda Accord’s CD player as I prepared to cross the graduation stage. By 2000 my friends and I were massive Outkast fans and this album seemed to be the moment that the world caught up to us. The singles were everywhere and Outkast’s notoriety seemed to be at an all-time high. It all culminated near the end of the year when I attended a journalism conference in Detroit with several of my college homies. While we were checking into the hotel, a tour bus pulled up and out strode both Outkast and Goodie Mob. Andre 3000 was wearing Pepto Bismol colored sweatpants, because of course he was. After years of being hip-hop’s best kept secret, Stankonia finally felt like Outkast’s breakout and I was happy to witness it firsthand. Pink sweatpants and all.

What’s your selection for best song?

Ron: “Ms. Jackson”

We all know that Outkast is known for getting almost overly sincere and vulnerable in their songs. But “Ms. Jackson” felt like a shift in the way relationships are portrayed in hip-hop. On one hand, we’re given Big Boi’s southern trap boy frustration as the lays into his former love interest and her mother after he feels like he’s tried everything under the sun to be respectful and cordial to a woman who clearly doesn’t rock with him. On the other, Andre 3000 comes to Ms. Jackson, hat in hand, pleading his case while searching for solace and reconciliation for the pain he’s caused. They’re the figurative angel and devil on the shoulders, giving us two sides of the same man struggling with his vulnerabilities and with the trials of life and grown-up relationships, and they do it with more openness than we were used to in hip-hop at that time. “Ms. Jackson” is the best song on Stankonia because it doesn’t tell us what we want to hear but makes us face up to the harshness of lost love, failed relationships, the trials of parenthood and complicated feelings that sometimes can’t be mended.

Edd: “B.O.B.”

We’ve been doing those Rewind posts for a few years now, but I struggle to think of a time when I had this much trouble ranking an album’s top five tracks. The singles are all monumental – each becoming classics in their own right. “Spaghetti Junction” is a highly underrated lyrical showcase (more on that later) and “Humble Mumble” is the song that first springs to mind when I hear the word Stankonia. I wore it OUT. All have a strong claim to take to top spot but I’ll have to go with the frenzy of “B.O.B.” for top billing. I wasn’t a big fan of it when I first heard it – it was too weird, too chaotic, too noisy, even for Outkast. But I soon realized that there was a method to its madness. It was a declarative statement, cementing their spots as rap legends before it all breaks out into that infamous #PowerMusicElectricRevival. From the booth to the baptismal pool, “B.O.B.” shook us to our cores.

We got a lot of iconic visuals from this project. What’s your pick for best video?

Ron: “B.O.B.”

Twenty-five yeas later, there are still no words to describe the video for “B.O.B.” It’s a fever dream, a hallucination and a mind f*** all in one. The way Andre’s verse kicks in and punches you in the face from the first bar, paired with visuals of electric purple grass, sexy aliens bouncing their curves and candy-painted Cadillacs is as wild and off kilter as anything that had been created to that point. I know for a fact that it left me completely breathless the first time I saw it. All the videos from Stankonia had their own charm: “So Fresh, So Clean” has a smooth, sauntering sexiness that’s supremely dark and enrapturing, and the sincerity of 3000 and Big Boi struggling to fix up a Southern money pit of “Ms. Jackson” is so emotional and poignant. But with all its Southern-fried, psychedelic and Afrofuturistic wild weirdness, there’s no doubt that “B.O.B” is best video off Stankonia.

Edd: “B.O.B.”

I hate to be a “B.O.B.” stan but Ron is on the money. As I mentioned above, I wasn’t a big fan of this track for months after its release – it was sensory overload. And it didn’t help that the visuals were like someone crammed every Parliament album into a food processor. But I’ve come to appreciate that insanity in recent years, probably because hip-hop seems adverse to taking risks these days. Not Dre and Big Boi, they gave us four and a half minutes of fury, creating a classic in the process.

Which song should have been a single?

Ron: “I’ll Call B4 I Cum”

Outkast doesn’t get enough credit for unexpected yet stellar guest appearances. “Skew It on the Bar-B” from Aquemini is one example, with Raekwon coming through and dropping a verse that gave the track that extra umph that it needed to become one of Dre and Big’s signature tracks. To me, “I’ll Call B4 I Cum” does something similar: it pairs a well-established artist who comes from a strong crew in the form of the late, great Gangsta Boo with the two Atlanta boys and allows her to do what she does best, which is get extra braggadocious, talk her sh*t and revel in her womanhood and sexuality. Coupled with the fact that “I’ll Call B4 I Cum” is so slinky, slippery and catchy, and I’d argue that Outkast had another single on their hands. Besides, Three 6 Mafia was slowly gaining more national and pop music attention at the time, anyway. The three chosen singles definitely stood the test of time and are some of the strongest album singles of all time, but I’ll make the argument for “I’ll Call B4 I Cum” could have been number four.

Edd: “Humble Mumble”

This is tough because Stankonia has the best selection of singles any artist could ask for – the smooth crossover appeal of “Ms. Jackson,” the meme-able (before we even knew that term) cockiness of “So Fresh, So Clean,” and the turbo-charged club banger “B.O.B.” Almost everything else seems too rugged or too experimental for airwaves. The only thing that may have worked is “Humble Mumble,” thanks to its gentle, soulful bounce and the guys’ catchy deliveries. Plus it has Erykah Badu on the hook, and you can’t go wrong adding a popular R&B artist to your radio single.

Best production goes to…

Ron: “Xplosion”

I’m giving best production to “Xplosion” because I feel that, outside of “B.O.B.,” it’s the song that did the most to throw in everything but the kitchen sink, making a frothy stew of plodding bass, dripping, watery and fuzzy, electric sound effects, and what sounds like a drum machine that’s possessed. Of course, the song wouldn’t be what it is without the lyrical acrobatics of 3000, B-Real and Big Boi, but the production here compliments the artists so well that it can’t go unmentioned. That gloomy, swampy moodiness that’s found throughout Stankonia’s production by Earthtone III and Organized Noize is most prominent on songs like “Gasoline Dreams,” “Snappin’ & Trappin,’” “We Love Deez Hoez” and especially here on “Xplosion.” Outkast might have cranked up the BPMs to give a nod to house, techno and rave music and culture, but they knew they couldn’t completely forget about that down home, Funkadelic-inspired dark southern funk. Hence, the brilliance of “Xplosion.”

Edd: “B.O.B.”

This is another difficult, almost impossible pick. Once again, I’m going to go with “B.O.B.” – not because it’s my favorite beat, but because it’s the most impressive one. Dre, Big Boi and Mr. DJ (collectively known as Earthtone III) throw everything at the wall – Jimi Hendrix guitars, vocals from your grandma’s choir, lots of bass, lots of organs, and somehow, miraculously, it all sticks. There is no way a beat this crammed with such contrasting sounds should work, but it does in the most magnificent of ways. It’s a sonic achievement.

What do you think is the most underrated song?

Ron: “Spaghetti Junction”

I feel like “Spaghetti Junction” is the most underrated song because it’s really a call back to earlier Outkast. It’s a song that easily could fit in well on Southerplayalisticadillacmuzik, yet it’s still forward-thinking and compliments Stankonia nicely. Additionally, it’s a moment that reminds me a lot of the title track on Aquemini and “Two Dope Boyz” from ATLiens, with 3000 and Big Boi seamlessly going bar for bar and pushing each other to lyrical greatness. And Sleepy Brown on the chorus seals the deal for me. Stankonia gets a lot of credit for being such a big departure from Outkasts’ earlier work. I think it gets a lot of flack for the same reason. But both the album and the artist deserve a lot of credit for having a nostalgic moment like “Spaghetti Junction” that doesn’t leave day one Outkast fans in the dust and forget about them yet still manages to not sound dated and stale. That’s not easy to pull off.

Edd: “Spaghetti Junction”

“Spaghetti Junction” is the one. Ron is right – as Kast continued to expand their sonic reach throughout this project, “Spaghetti Junction” brings a sense of familiarity. By no means am I saying it feels dated or stale, it’s just a forceful throwback to their roots, the type of track that made Day 1 fans fall in love with the group back in the early 90s. It gets lost in the shuffle of the more flamboyant tracks on the set but it easily holds its own.

Lots of memorable features on this project, but which one was the best?

Ron: Killer Mike on “Snappin’ & Trappin’”

For me, it’s impossible to argue against Killer Mike’s performance on “Snappin’ & Trappin’” as the best feature on Stankonia. Pretty much an unknown at that point, Mike had nothing to lose and he knew it. He’s vicious and unhinged as he slices and skewers bar after bar, giving us just a glimpse of his greatness in the years to come. In all fairness, there are lots of great features on Stankonia. Erykah Badu lends her signature airiness, along with some unexpected whines and wails that make “Humble Mumble” so eerily captivating. B-Real’s signature nasally flow gives some West Coast flavor to the frantic “Xplosion.” And Big Rube and Sleepy Brown make “Stankonia (Stank Love)” a syrupy, darkly sensual delight. But none of them could compare to the way Killer Mike put the hip-hop world on notice that he was coming for its entire neck.

Edd: Killer Mike on “Snappin’ & Trappin’”

Simply put, “Snappin’ & Trappin’” was a starmaking performance for Killer Mike. I mentioned on this site recently that Killer Mike has quietly become one of rap’s most consistently awesome artists over the past decade, and that started here. From the very beginning, Mike showcased that raw fury that would become his trademark. It’s hard to outshine heavyweights like Big Boi and Three Stacks, but Mike does it with ease.

Who provided the strongest verse on the album?

Ron: Andre 3000 on “Xplosion”

The number of mind-bending verses on Stankonia is almost too many to count. Big Boi’s intro verse on “Humble Mumble.”, for example, is sorely underrated. And we’ve already touched on Killer Mike’s superb debut on “Snappin’ & Trappin.’” But the amount of lyrical jiu jitsu that Dre performs on “Xplosion” is supernatural. It’s always amazing to hear emcees use their voice like a living, breathing instrument. In one verse, 3000 switches flows, cadences and inflections faster than the Kardashians switch partners, leaving us hundreds of miles in the dust wondering how he left us spellbound:

“Snot, spit, sh*t are characteristics of release/

Ask your niece or nephew, you think we left you? /

What the future holds in its sweaty palms/ Thank I’m finna vom’? You move like you mean it, she’ll cum…”

Sure, Dre would go on to have verses that are more revered than this one, but if you ask me, the intro verse on “Xplosion” is easily in his top 10 verses of all time and smokes pretty much any other verse from Stankonia.

Edd: Andre 3000 on “Gangsta S***”

I ALMOST went with Killer Mike on “Snappin n Trappin’” but while relisteing to the album for this piece, Andre’s closing verse on “Gangsta S***” stuck with me, specifically how he flipped the concept on its head in this final lines, calling out the fake tough guys who act hard for attention. Subverting expectations always makes rap concepts hit harder.

This was Outkast’s’ breakout album, the one that hit big outside of the U.S. Why do you think that is?

Ron: I think it’s for a few reasons. For one thing, Outkast built up a lot of goodwill with their first three albums, especially with Aquemini. For another, I’m a firm believer in timing being everything when it comes to music. With the state that the world was in, lots of people were looking for something new and unexpected from hip-hop and music at the end of the 90s and into 2000, and the boys from Atlanta delivered on that front, without question. But one other reason I think this was a breakout album across the globe is a great point that Questlove made in an interview on his podcast about the album: a lot of Stankonia was Outkasts’ take on the genres of drum ‘n’ bass, techno, house and the rave scene, which had all been gaining popularity and attention across Europe in places like London, Berlin and Milan. 3000 and Big Boi were tuned in enough to take a major artistic risk with Stankonia, even after they’d creatively distinguished themselves from the rest of hip-hop beginning with ATLiens and continuing with Aquemini and really had nothing more to prove.

Edd: Ron touched on it, but Stankonia was one of those moments when the stars aligned. First, let’s talk stateside. Remember, this was the group’s fourth album  – they were established commodities by this point yet still underrated due to their southern ties. But by 2000, rap was evolving, and New York’s stranglehold on rap was beginning to loosen.  Three 6 Mafia was tearing clubs up, UGK was making noise, Timbaland, Missy Elliott and the Neptunes were rewriting the rules of production – hip-hop’s mind was more open to experimentation, and its mind was absolutely melted by the frenzy that Stankonia unleashed upon them. And outside of our borders, as Ron noted, Outkast’s risks were embraced in those European rave scenes that were hungry for something new. If Stankonia dropped five years earlier, the success likely wouldn’t have been as strong. But as the millennium struck and hip-hop expanded its reach, Outkast became a gateway for many new audiences.

How did Stankonia elevate Southern hip-hop as a whole?

Ron: To me, each one of Outkast’s first four albums helped to elevate Southern hip-hop in their own specific way. But with Stankonia, the melding of thick country rap tunes with drum ‘n’ bass, jungle, muddy funk, psychedelic rock and electronica was a huge risk that paid off handsomely. For all its unorthodox meshing of genres and disregard for the rules in hip-hop at the time, it’s an album that picked up right where Aquemini left off in bringing wider attention to the candor, complexity and heart of Southern hip-hop.  Beyond that, I’d make the argument that this album alone had a huge influence on the music of Southern artists like Big K.R.I.T., Little Brother, Earthgang, Isaiah Rashad, Future and B.o.B., as well as an even larger artistic impact on hip-hop artists outside of the South like Kanye, Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino.

Edd: I touched on the ground Stankonia broke for Southern artists above but perhaps most importantly, it showed that Southern artists could innovate. Believe me, I was around in the 90s, when Southern rappers were labeled as lame country bumpkins. Stankonia proved that the South had its own voice and sound – particularly a sound that was not afraid to take major risks. There was no pattern, no boilerplate beats, no rules about what rap was “supposed” to sound like. It was sonic expressionism, creating a uniqueness that other regions still can’t fully capture today. Simply put, Stankonia proved that not only did the South have something to say, it would sound like nothing you’ve heard before or since.

Where would you rank Stankonia among Outkast’s albums?

Ron: I personally put Stankonia second only to Aquemini in Outkasts’ catalog. I’ll continue to make the argument that their first four albums are bona fide classics, each for different reasons. When it comes to Stankonia, we’ve got arguably three of the greatest album singles in hip-hop history on one body of work. We’ve got Andre 3000 and Big Boi at their peak, both lyrically and creatively. We’ve got top tier guest appearances from R&B and hip-hop heavyweights like B-Real, CeeLo, Gangsta Boo and Erykah Badu, Dungeon Family disciples like Sleepy Brown, Big Gipp and Khujo, and one of the greatest debuts ever from Killer Mike. And we’ve got a weird but scintillating mix of music, technology and instruments that only Outkast could pull off. No, Stankonia isn’t a perfect body of work (many of the skits are unnecessary). But for all its innovation, its use of a wide range of styles and genres and combination of deep cuts that range from classic Southern gangsta funk to sexy ballads dripping with innuendo to cautionary tales, I won’t argue against Stankonia being heralded as a classic.

Edd: Real talk, I’d rank Stankonia on the lower end of Outkast’s discography – definitely above Idlewild, but wrestling with Speakerboxxx/The Love Below for the next to last spot. That’s not so much of a reflection of its quality as it’s the result of SUCH a high bar to clear. Outkast’s first three albums remain untouchable for me and while I greatly enjoy Stankonia and respect the ground it broke, in many spots  it feels like a more mainstream-leaning version of Aquemini. But again, that’s just me nit-picking in favor of its elite older brothers. Stankonia is easily a top five rap release of the year 2000 and a crucial piece of their story. Without Stankonia, there would be no Ms, Jacksons to torment us, no declarations of being “so fresh and so clean-clean,” and maybe we’d live in a world without Big Boi and Andre as rap legends. Glad I don’t live in that timeline.

Whose opinions were the stankiest, Ron or Edd’s? Share your memories of Outkast and Stankonia below!