I listened to Stankonia a lot growing up. I remember my cousin had this DVD with chopped and screwed versions of music videos and Ms. Jackson video was the first song I remember hearing from them and Stankonia was the first Kast CD I bought from them. Who doesn’t want to go to The Spot and sit front row with Outkast and Goodie Mob? “The Ms. Seeing André, Big Boi, and Sleepy dance in the palm of the same painted lady from the album packaging is a fantasy that anyone would want. Watching the So Fresh, So Clean video, directed by Dave Meyers as well, it is almost as if you want to be in the life they have in the video. When you are watching the video for B.O.B, directed by Dave Meyers, it is like you are in an entirely different world of sidewalks paved with gold, streets paved in the color green, purple grass and you are on a tour bus with strippers and Big Boi. This album hit me right where I needed it to when I was at that stage of my life.įrom their visuals, singles and all of the previous bodies of work that led up to the 2000 release of Stankonia, it all was just so amazing. I had yet to identify with music in any way besides being a normal listener. This album puts me in the best mood whenever I hit play. The other songs like ‘We Luv Deez Hoez’ make me feel loved and seen by making sure I’m ready to be on 10 at any time. While songs like ‘Call B4 U Cum’ gave me life advice and let me know what Gangsta Boo and Eco were on. Songs like ‘Slum Beautiful’ and ‘Humble Mumble’ let me know that it wasn’t all that bad. I wasn’t able to walk down the hall without hearing somebody singing So Fresh, So Clean.” – of turned into my bible at this time, another album still has yet to replace it. “I remember them being everywhere at the time. This album really showed me that it wasn’t that bad at all.
At this time those problems seem minuscule, like crying everytime that I got rejected from almost all of the schools that I wanted to go to.
I was starting my mornings off with listening to FatManKey while I was brushing my teeth, but when I entered the building, Stankonia was pretty much the only thing I was playing and wearing for real.Īt the same time, I was going through what I felt was the hardest point in my life so far. I was like 4 or 5, they didn’t crown a winner, but everybody knew I was killing them niggas.” – forward to me being a junior and senior in high school, I had a newfound obsession. “So Fresh and So Clean came on a family reunion and me and my cousins had a dance off. At 16 I knew that his Cadillac had a boom boom in it also that I did indeed want to know about gangsta shit from Outkast, Goodie Mob, and the Dungeon Click. I have memories of being a toddler in 2001 listening to the radio while my mom dropped my brother and sister off at school and knowing that Sir Lucious had gator belts and patty melts. It wasn’t until my high school years that I realized that André 3000 and Big Boi actually snapped outside of what KMEL has been playing for years on end. Or even having my parents put it into the home stereo system, they were not on that. Now I am only twenty years old so it’s not like I have any remote memories connected to this body of work like waiting on Halloween Day in 2000 for school to let out so I can rush to the nearest Rasputin, Amoeba Music, or Best Buy to get it. Today, eighteen years ago the amazing Atlanta duo, Outkast released what is now one of my favorite albums of all time.