ATLiens

About

You can’t talk about <i>ATLiens</i> without talking about André 3000 getting up at the 1995 Source Awards and saying, “The South got something to say.” Not only did it mark the beginning of a tidal shift in the role the South played in hip-hop (whether it was Master P or Juvenile or Big Tymers or Ludacris or Lil Jon or countless others), it told you something crucial about who Outkast were and how they handled themselve. Ye, they were laid-back and a little spiritual and at the very least coming in at an angle more oblique than Biggie or Tupac, but that didn’t mean they didn’t know how to be hard when hard was necessary. If anything, it was that sense of groundedness that made their more cosmic sides digestible in the first place—like, coming from them, you could believe it in a way that flightier artists might give you pause. “Softly as if I played the piano in the dark/Found a way to channel my anger, now to embark,” André starts a verse on “ATLien,” ending on the image of his creativity as a gun that never runs out of ammunition. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

Start your shelf to read the full take →