Stankonia, or Aquemini?

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

After a couple years of living off of burns and borrowed copies, I finally scored myself legit copies of Outkast's dual masterpieces, Aquemini and Stankonia.

 

Listening to both over and over again during the course of the past few days, I can't decide which one I like better. They're both very similar in terms of length and depth, with 15-16 actual songs and a smattering of interludes and vignettes throughout.

 

It's a tough call. There are strong songs all around. Nothing beats the singles off of Stankonia: "B.O.B.", "Ms. Jackson," and "So Fresh and So Clean." But does Aquemini's more balanced sound make up for a lack of radio wonders? "Rosa Parks," "Spottieoppiedopealicious," "Chonkyfire," and many others all hold their own with the strongest from Stankonia. I always get the feeling that Aquemini feels more unified thanks to a more central sound and even that simple frame of the record shop, but Stankonia oozes eclectic charm out every pore.

 

So, what does everyone else think? From where I sit they're probably the two most interesting rap albums of the past half-decade.

[Guest IDrinkRatsMilk]

Aquemini is better to me. Just a listening preference, I can't really call one a better piece of work than the other. Except that I don't like Ms. Jackson for some reason.

[Guest My Eyebrow is on fire]

Outkast is just southern backpack rap to me, I've never been a fan. They get pseudo-respect from the NY fans and from what I know, not that much respect from down south either. Nobody really calls any of their shit "classic" except for true school hip hop snobs like Davey D.

[Guest ant_7000]

Why are people so late on Outkast until these last 2 albums, they started to get notice. Aquemni is better album then all of them, but thats not my favorite Outkast album that was Southernplayalisticcadillacmuzik back in 93. And whats Backpack rap? or whats a backpacker? I know what it means but I hate those terms.

[Guest Kinetic]

Aquemini is the superior album for the cohesion of sound reason that Edwin mentioned. But then a case could be made for Stankonia as well, due to the fact that "Mamacita" is the only really bad song on either album (Andre's verse is good, but the rest of the song is a piece of shit). But, ultimately, Aquemini is the better album and it's impossible to discern why.

 

And the reason why white people didn't start listening to Outkast until recently is because Andre 3000's Curtis Mayfield/Bootsy Collins wardrobe didn't get major publicity until about 2000 or so. White folks love it when people dress funny.

[Guest Kinetic]

Oh, and I think "ATLiens" is about as good as anything off of either of their latter two albums. The rest of the album is pretty spotty, but that song alone makes the album worth owning.

[rising up out of the back seat-nuh 0]

Aquemini is my favourite album of all time. Just the way it kicks in with the first two tracks: superb.

Stankonia is good, but just seems to be lacking something. Maybe i overplayed it to myself. B.O.B still kicks all kind of ass though.

 

I've got high hopes of the new double album too. All the stuff they've released since Stankonia sounds damn good, particularly the Dungeon Family album. Only a month or so to go!

[Guest Ripper]

Outkast is just southern backpack rap to me, I've never been a fan. They get pseudo-respect from the NY fans and from what I know, not that much respect from down south either. Nobody really calls any of their shit "classic" except for true school hip hop snobs like Davey D.

You'd be hard pressed to find many hip-hop fans in the south that don't consider..well...basically all of their albums classics (5 mic in the Source also...not many have done that) Not sure where you are getting the from.

 

And ant...you must realize that once something becomes popular, they have to start breaking it down into ridiculous amounts of catagories. It's like Rock music. Instead of saying that some rock music sucks, people have made up roughly 200 different Rock genres. Someone can say "ROCK ~OWNZ!!!!"...you name a rock band that is horrible and they can say "Thats not really rock, that is emo-pop-ska-punk-grundgey-loli-ding-dong...not rock". Instead of accepting that some rock(or anyother type of music) just plain sucks, they weuld rather name what they don't like something else.

 

So now basically, they are doing the same with hip-hop. If they are actually talking about something and not all about making you shake your ass, it isn't hip-hop...its backpack rap...

 

This is from the same people that allowed Sisco(or however you spell his name) to win BEST HIP HOP ARTIST for his THONG SONG performance. Don't pay attention or get caught up in that crap. Let them call it what ever they want to, its hip-hop to those of us that were into it before the last few years.

[Guest My Eyebrow is on fire]

I group hip hop into several categories, including "backpack" and therefore I'm one of those who permitted Bitch-ko to win the award. What a shit head line of reasoning. Stop being subliminal with your idiotic flames and just say what you mean - I won't report your fucking ass to the mods.

 

Anyway, hip hop DOES have several genres - and I don't know anybody from the Jamaicans in West PHI, to the Brooklyn cats I know who listens to fucking OUTKAST. It's the white hippie kids who want to be down and those MC Afrika Science kufi cake wearing cornballs who listen to that bullshit.

 

You obviously weren't into hip hop for very fucking long if you don't recognize the difference between West Coast G-Funk (snoop and them), Bay Area Zapp Hop (e-40), midwest speed shit, dirty south club shit, east coast thug shit, east coast backpack conscious rap - the differences were around back when Tim Dogg dissed Compton in 1990, and when the bridge was over, etc.

 

Producers in the industry (of whom I happen to be one) are divided into various schools as to how to make beats. For a more true school sound, you're prone to use ASR's line of sequencers with jazz-based sampling, west coast cats tend to use software sequencing, and ...even right down to the HARDWARE you use affects what genre your shit will sound li....you know what? you don't fucking understand because you don't know jack shit about hip hop or what goes into making it.

[Guest IDrinkRatsMilk]

Anyway, hip hop DOES have several genres - and I don't know anybody from the Jamaicans in West PHI, to the Brooklyn cats I know who listens to fucking OUTKAST. It's the white hippie kids who want to be down and those MC Afrika Science kufi cake wearing cornballs who listen to that bullshit.

I don't know of any white hippies listening to Outkast. They seem to be more Public Enemy fans.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Ant: I didn't get into Outkast at all till Aquemini simply because I'd never heard them before. Being a middle-class white guy who doesn't watch a lot of TV or listen to the radio, I never had a chance to hear "Player's Ball" till I decided to download it.

 

due to the fact that "Mamacita" is the only really bad song on either album

 

Here here. I kind of want to drown the woman who shouts "PAPADONNA!" 40 times in that one. Drown her in banana bread, even.

[rising up out of the back seat-nuh 0]

Anyway, hip hop DOES have several genres - and I don't know anybody from the Jamaicans in West PHI, to the Brooklyn cats I know who listens to fucking OUTKAST.  It's the white hippie kids who want to be down and those MC Afrika Science kufi cake wearing cornballs who listen to that bullshit.

I don't know of any white hippies listening to Outkast. They seem to be more Public Enemy fans.

I'm a white hippy, and i like Outkast....

 

But I'm also British. Does that count as a double negative or something?

[Guest IDrinkRatsMilk]

Actually I've always wondered what kind of hip hop the Brits are into. I've only known one rap fan from over there, and he was all about Eminem.

[Guest razazteca]

Aquemini was the album that was the 70s retro sound right? Its one of 2 albums of Outkast that I own the other being ATLiens which is a good album itself. I have given Stankonia much thought so I will not comment on the album as a whole but from the videos that I have seen I can say that it is entertaining.

 

As for spliting Hip-Hop into catagories well to me its

 

1) Gangster street cred BS - I this gives Rap a bad name

2) R&B duets with hot girlz~ (Ja Rule with Ashanti)

3) Battle rap or freestyle

4) DJ Mixtape

5) Booty Bass

6) Regional (West, East, South)

7) Intelligent message (Public Enemy)

8) Easy listening (Will Smith or Heavy D)

9) Retro/Nostaglia (mixing 70s Jazz, Soul, Funk)

 

most will overlap

[rising up out of the back seat-nuh 0]

Actually I've always wondered what kind of hip hop the Brits are into. I've only known one rap fan from over there, and he was all about Eminem.

Generally, whats popular in the states is what's popular in the UK 6 months later. 50 cent is big now, before that it was Murder Inc. Eminems always around.

 

As for actual hip-hop that people like, the Neptunes have got a good following. I think a higher percentage of people have heard of N*E*R*D than in the states. Outkast are very well respected as well. They're probably the biggest "credible" acts over here.

 

The problem is tha the only artists to get any airplay outside hip-hop clubs are the massive artists like eminem and Ja Rule. Britains never had a decent hip-hop artist. The closest we get is So Solid Crew, Big Brothers and The Streets

[Guest razazteca]

Massive Attack was considered trip-hop, which is a form of rap right. I like Tricky

 

I don't understand the Streets hate.

[Guest Ripper]

I group hip hop into several categories, including "backpack" and therefore I'm one of those who permitted Bitch-ko to win the award. What a shit head line of reasoning. Stop being subliminal with your idiotic flames and just say what you mean - I won't report your fucking ass to the mods.

 

Anyway, hip hop DOES have several genres - and I don't know anybody from the Jamaicans in West PHI, to the Brooklyn cats I know who listens to fucking OUTKAST. It's the white hippie kids who want to be down and those MC Afrika Science kufi cake wearing cornballs who listen to that bullshit.

 

You obviously weren't into hip hop for very fucking long if you don't recognize the difference between West Coast G-Funk (snoop and them), Bay Area Zapp Hop (e-40), midwest speed shit, dirty south club shit, east coast thug shit, east coast backpack conscious rap - the differences were around back when Tim Dogg dissed Compton in 1990, and when the bridge was over, etc.

 

Producers in the industry (of whom I happen to be one) are divided into various schools as to how to make beats. For a more true school sound, you're prone to use ASR's line of sequencers with jazz-based sampling, west coast cats tend to use software sequencing, and ...even right down to the HARDWARE you use affects what genre your shit will sound li....you know what? you don't fucking understand because you don't know jack shit about hip hop or what goes into making it.

Damn to bad he is banned...or I would really put some thought into that page and a half of bullshit he just wrote.

 

Lets just rememeber this:

 

A: I am older than him and was listening to hip-hop before he could even began to understand it.

 

B: Hip-hop is hip-hop. They sound differenct because (gasp) they actually come from different people. Music is an art and it doesn't suppose to sound alike. If you really want to start breaking down music, each and every original artist would have their own genre and we would have MILLIONS of genres of music. That is ridiculous.

 

C: OutKast: one of the most widely accepted and celebrated rap groups of all time are only liked by "white-hippies" Suuuurrrreeee. So because you and your friends don't know about it, it doesn't exist to the rest of the world? Check the sales on southernplayaisticcadallacfunkymusic (before rap was commercial and before you started listening to it obviously) and see how many people was feeling it. Go in a room of hip hop heads and say "Are you a out cast?" and see how many finish that monologue. Dre is always on every hip-hop artist's list of the best lyricist. But since some basement producer of such hits as "AOL HOES" like yourself doesn't feel them, nobody does.

 

C: If you are calling "Snoop and them" back in the day hip hop, you are REALLY showing that you know NOTHING. Suger Hill gang, KRS-1, Slick Rick, Biz Markie, Funk Master Flash, Run DMC, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, Rakim, Gang Starr, African Bambada...those are back in the day artist...they all sounded different, they all had different methods and ways to produce their music, BUT IT WAS ALL HIP-HOP just like it is today.

 

D: Production has NEVER, and I repeat NEVER had shit to do with hip-hop. Hip-hop was born with freestyle battles with your man providing the simple beat with their fist or mouth. The lyrics have always been the basis of it, and always will be. So rather it be Puffy, Nelly or the Roots, and Mos Def, they are all hip-hop to varying degrees.

 

Just another young cat trying to fuck with MY music. I was there when it started and will be there when little "I want to make music to get "hoes". flash in the pan no talents like you are done destroying the genre.

 

 

 

...

 

 

 

And I win by default because you can't respond.

[Guest Anorak]

Out of the two albums I normally play Aquemini all the way through more often because its just one of those albums that almost requires it somehow. I found it to be one of those albums that gets better and better with every listen as you go through the stages of having about 6 different songs on it as your favourite. Stankonia has songs to equal it but for me the middle few songs on the album just drag ever so slightly and i'm far more likely to play it as background music or dip into certain tracks than with Aquemini. Totally agree about 'Mamacita' BTW, that woman's voice just grates too much for me to resist skipping to the brilliant last few tracks.

 

As for the British rap fan question I don't own a whole lot of albums or have the greatest knowledge of the genre as in having heard the widest range of stuff. In other words i'm not bad with names but I might need to be told exactly where they fit. Nearly all my rap albums are from bands like Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Gang Starr and Jurassic 5, the mostly older & laid back stuff that wasn't Gangsta Rap.

 

I know sod all about British Rap to be honest, I heard Roots Manuva is good but i've never heard much aside from a couple of singles.

[Guest Ripper]

I felt so bad about the Mamacita song too, because a friend of mine raps on that song...but it was just really a bad song.

[Guest ant_7000]

Brrrr What happened to that boy? Too bad he got banned because I wanted address the so called "backpack/nerdy rap" issue, so called backpack groups like dead prez or The Roots don't consider themselves as "backpackers" and say thats the way their marketed by their record labels. Damn eyebrow's history starts at 1990 and he Name dropped Zapp im suprised he knew who that was. Outkast is liked by everybody from coast 2 coast not just "white hippies" white fans and MTV might've caught on to them late but its all good, but their stuff is always improving. I don't have to listen to a single of theirs and I would still buy their album (Which comes out in August).