Aquemini

There is nothing polite about the way OutKast opened Aquemini. "Return of the 'G'" begins with Big Boi rapping over a dark, live-band groove about defending his identity against pressure from every direction, while André 3000 immediately follows talking about spirituality and the way fame changes a person's soul. Two rappers on the same song, in the same city, with completely different obsessions, making the gap between them feel like the whole point. That tension between Big Boi's grounded Southern confidence and André's restless artistic expansion became the engine of the album and the most compelling creative dynamic in hip-hop.

The duo recorded at Bobby Brown's Atlanta studio for months, sometimes living there, building songs from live jam sessions rather than pre-made beats. André listened to Bob Marley constantly throughout the sessions. George Clinton showed up to contribute. Erykah Badu, who was expecting André's child at the time, appears on the track "SpottieOttieDopaliscious," which is built on a live horn arrangement that sounds like a Southern funeral march turned into a late-night confession. The album became the first Southern rap record to earn a five-mic rating from The Source, a milestone that announced to the rest of the country that Atlanta was operating on a different level.

Aquemini does not sound like anything that came before it in rap, and it is hard to name something in the genre that sounds quite like it now. It is funky and psychedelic and street-level and cosmic all at once. If you want to understand what made OutKast one of the greatest acts in the history of American music, this is where you start.