Whilst ATLiens twirled its extra-terrestrial tendrils out into a cosmic, Afrofuturist universe, Stankonia charts a course down, down to the dirtiest depths seven light-years below sea-level, to an imagined homeland “f rom which all funky things come”. Rather, it’s a strange, dense, dark and genre-bending cocktail of ideas and sounds, masterfully rendered by an increasingly eccentrically-dressed Three Stacks and grounded by the reliable swagger of Big Boi. In retrospect, it comes as no surprise that Stankonia is the complete opposite to the appealing pop-crossover victory lap it easily could have been. Their increasing popularity and recognition by a wider audience perfectly set the stage for a mainstream crossover album to truly launch the duo into the stratosphere… But OutKast are nothing if not subversive. Tired of being overlooked and disrespected by the wider music world, André 3000 took to the mic and addressed the booing crowd, announcing that “ the South got something to say”, a moment subsequently immortalised as an audacious reminder to anyone else who may want to diss Southern hip-hop on ‘Chonkyfire’ from 1998’s Aquemini. Having arrived on the scene with their debut, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, and garnered increasing critical acclaim with ATLiens and Aquemini, their position in the hip-hop zeitgeist was truly cemented at the 1995 Source Awards, when they were controversially awarded Best New Rap Group at the peak of the East Coast-West Coast feud.
By 2000, the world was already well-acquainted with OutKast’s unlikely pairing of André 3000 and Big Boi, AKA Three Stacks and Sir Lucious L.
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