Black History Music Pt. 9
In celebration of Black History Month, the Ear Candy Update
intends to celebrate landmark recordings by black artists that have shaped the
collective consciousness, mentality, and sense of cool the world over. Next,
Outkast’s “Aquemini.”
“Say I be GOT dammit, they done changed the rules.”
There’s a defiant Southern earthiness and spirituality that
doesn’t confine either Andre 3000 or Big Boi, but rather provides the platform
for their launch in the outer limits of the universe. Informed by that, and a heady cocktail of astrology ("Aquemini" is a portmanteau of the pair's astrological signs - Big Boi the Aquarius and Andre the Gemini), Rasta, and big hooks, Outkast put Atlanta on the map and somehow hovered above all the noise as if their mission had a larger purpose.
And then you have whatever you'd like to call "Spottieottiedopaliscious" which may be the greatest P-Funk track that P-Funk never recorded, and I mean that with highest of praise. Recorded with live horns and bass in a room with probably more pot smoke in it than air, the track moves with a call-and-response vibe that is less rhyme slinging and more spoken word.
More massive hits would come. The dynamite of "Ms. Jackson," the charm of "So Fresh, So Clean," and the bombast of "B.O.B." was two years away. "Aquemini" would restructure, collectively, the perception of what was possible. It made the tough guys bounce and the weirdo kids feel cool. Hip hop was still dangerous in 1998, but Outkast made it accessible in the same manner Bob Marley made roots rebel music accessible.
The recipe for this bouillabaisse includes Southern-fried
funk, Deep South bounce and blues breaks, Hendrixian wah wah, Prince and
Funkadelic-styled grooves, dizzying linguistic gymnastics, and two authentic
MCs. But you can’t just follow that recipe. Only two people alive could have
pulled this shit off. “Aquemini” is both Southern hip hop’s “The Chronic” AND “Are
you Experienced.” This is the moment Outkast earned their crown.
"I met a gypsy and she hipped to some life game
To stimulate then activate the left and right brain."
By taking legendary iconography of the civil rights struggle and inverting it into a back porch harmonica stomp, Outkast blew open possibilities the hip hop hierarchy had yet to consider. Even wilder was "Liberation" featuring Cee-Lo Green and Erykah Badu. It's a spaced-out, brooding 9-minute rumination on the nature of being black in the modern world with jazz and blues overtones that is unlike anything to appear on a major label hip hop record in perhaps ever.
To keep the album rooted in rap tradition, the duo present us with "Da Art of Storytellin,'" a two-piece track that showcases the duo's capacity to paint in urban realism with grit and style but also carve out new narrative possibilities that impacted contemporaries like Raekwon and future generations of MCs like J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar.
And then you have whatever you'd like to call "Spottieottiedopaliscious" which may be the greatest P-Funk track that P-Funk never recorded, and I mean that with highest of praise. Recorded with live horns and bass in a room with probably more pot smoke in it than air, the track moves with a call-and-response vibe that is less rhyme slinging and more spoken word.
More massive hits would come. The dynamite of "Ms. Jackson," the charm of "So Fresh, So Clean," and the bombast of "B.O.B." was two years away. "Aquemini" would restructure, collectively, the perception of what was possible. It made the tough guys bounce and the weirdo kids feel cool. Hip hop was still dangerous in 1998, but Outkast made it accessible in the same manner Bob Marley made roots rebel music accessible.
Comments
Post a Comment