Outkast - Aquemini

"Aquemini" fills the air like the smoke from a fat charcoal grill, causing everything to shimmer behind it with heat. At this point Outkast (and Organized Noize) had the budget for some seriously overblown productions, but before they went the way of galactic space-funk with "Stankonia," they had a barbecue and got down. The instrumentation on here drips with deep dark soul sauce, from the organs and horns of "Return of the G" to the strummed guitars and harmonicas and foot-stomping of "Rosa Parks" to the ethereal percussion and slow-cooking poetry of "Aquemini", to the horn-section melancholy of "Spottieottiedopalicious," and the psychedelic guitar work on "Chonkyfire". The background singing is always beautiful and soulful, like on the feed-the-baby anthem "Slump," the melancholy "Return of the G," and the sublime "Art of Storytelling" which is probably Outkast's greatest song ever, matching Big Boi's parking lot pimping with Andre's tearjerking reminiscence on Sasha Thumper. Big Boi and Andre are both in fine form, spitting forever-quotable lines. The laid-back, never in a hurry production fits their flows perfectly, with Big Boi's fifty-million-syllables-in-a-bar stop and start style never sounding rushed or off-beat, and Andre able to spread his wings and throw (for example) thousands of monosyllable rhymes into one non-stop verse on the title track: "My mind warps and bends, floats the wind, count to ten, meet the twin, Andre Ben, welcome to the lion's den, original skin many men comprehend, I extend myself so you go out and tell a friend, sin all depends on what you believing in, faith is what you make it, that's the hardest shit since MC Ren, Alien can blend right on in with your kin, look again cause I swear I spot one every now and then, It's happenin' again wish I could tell you when, Andre this is Andre, ya'll just gon' have to make amends". Big Daddy Kane got nothin' on this. Anyone deprived enough to still have no Outkast in their collection, start here.