Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik – Outkast – Released April 26th 1994, Arista/La Face
Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik is the 1994 debut album from Atlanta hiphop duo Outkast, the album widely credited with putting Southern hiphop on the map.
Outkast consists of Big Boi and André 3000, two dope boys from jawjah who started the group back in the early 90s.
Their unique rhyming style soon caught the attention of Organized Noize, the production team consisting of Rico Wade, Sleepy Brown and Ray Murray, who were looking for local talent to nurture.
Organized Noize was instrumental in promoting and defining Outkast’s unique sound. The trio would also enjoy commercial success with the 90s R&B girl group TLC, particularly with the hit track Waterfalls.
At the vanguard of Atlanta rap was the track Player’s Ball, a sizzling slice of Southern-fried Superfly pimp daddy dopeness that dropped back in November nine-tray, round about the same time as Snoop Dogg dropped Doggystyle.
We were spoiled back then, we really were.
Following the blow-up success of Player’s Ball an album was inevitable.
An album with an annoying name, I should add.
And this is the last time I will type the name Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, which currently has a big long red squiggle under it longer than a Arrakis sandworm – right click, ignore all – there we go, spellcheck done.
That should be enough mentions of it for SEO bullshit purposes anyway, so from here on I’ll just be referring to it as “the album”.
And what an album it is.
An album that completely rewrote the rules of what hiphop was meant to be while introducing a whole generation of fans to an entirely new style and lingo.
This week’s 30th anniversary is a milestone, albeit marred by the fact that Rico Wade, one third of the Organized Noize crew, passed just a couple of weeks ago on April 15th 2024.
It was in Wade’s mother’s basement-turned-studio, known as The Dungeon, a dank and cramped yet legendary musical incubator where Outkast and fellow alum like Goodie Mob began their careers.
And it’s here in this crowded, sweaty, weed-infused hidey hole where the story of Outkast begins.
So grab yourself some Hennessy and go crumble some ‘erb as we take a funky ride down south and I promise I’ll do my best to get through this review without using words like “y’awl.”
Bouncy
When this album came out, I was still torn between Warren G and the Wu Tang Clan. In one corner, the peak of g funk chic, in the other, the raw brawling shaolin ruckus.
First let me fess up, I arrived quite late to the Outkast party, which was just as well as I was still quite busy trying to decode the finer points of Staten Island slang and West Coast gangsta shizzle. All this pimpin’ and grits shit would have fried my brain at the time.
That’s why I was only vaguely aware of these guys throughout the 90s and it wasn’t until the early 2000s I discovered them in earnest and quickly realised what I’d been missing.
ATLiens and Aquemini were the two albums I recall most, since an ex of mine had them on CD. I then grabbed this and Stankonia, which at the time was their latest release.
So, from my perspective, all the early Outkast albums sorta merged together into a thick, chunky, funky southernwinampplayalistik soup.
To be fair, we’re talking peak P2P/MP3 era and I was a proper 64k bigshot with ISDN access and a cracked version of Nero.
I also had the ability to finesse me some fat stack spindles of CDRs at cost price, the perks of runnin’ the computer shop game – y’know, if you bytes and bits and all dat internet pimp shit.
So, as with a lot of music from this period, it existed as folders, not albums, generally blasted out in the back of the computer shop or ripped to shitty CDs for primitive portability.
Outkast primarily existed alongside other peers like Pharcyde and Dre on a cheap, easy-scratch CDR with the words, “bouncy car” scrawled in thick black permanent marker, underneath was a poorly drawn lowrider with springy wiggley bounce lines under the front tires.
Inside the car you could just about make out a stickman, leaned back with one outsized arm hanging out the window surrounded by tiny puffs of smoke. #laidback
Course I didn’t have a bouncy car, but I did have a mini jack to cassette adaptor plus my trusty Panasonic portable CD player which also played MP3s with variable degrees of success. And that was some high-tech shit at the time.
Not long after Speakerboxxx/The Love Below came out, an album which I balked at and seem to be in the minority when I say it’s overrated. It certainly sold a shit ton tho.
I realised later the reason, Organized Noize weren’t involved in it, hence why it never sat right with me, always sounded like Outkast Lite.
But we’re not here to talk about that one, we’re here to rewind back to 1994 and the album which started it all.
Peachy
The album starts with a skit track called Peaches that’s loaded with that Southern slang, before Myintrotoletuknow kicks off the album in earnest.
This followed by Ain’t No Thang, a slow creepin’ tinted-window gangsta groove that’s certainly got g funk in its DNA but with its own unique flava and an insanely infectious hook.
It’s the joint.
We then get another skit called Welcome To Atlanta followed by the title track, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, which I’ve just copied and pasted here because there’s no fucking way I’m typing it all out again.
It’s followed up by two bangers, the first being Call Of Da Wild which sees the duo joined by fellow Atlanteans Goodie Mob.
Next we get to the tune that shot Outkast to fame, Player’s Ball.
Player’s Ball was a game changer. As mentioned, this tune dropped the same time Snoop Dogg released Doggystyle and you could even say it kinda upstaged it.
Forever pimpin’, never slippin’, that’s how it is
Player’s Ball was apparently intended as a xmas song (which is what the label asked for) but it became something much bigger, staring West Coast hiphop right in the eye saying, “I’ll see your George Clinton, and raise you a Curtis Mayfield.”
That’s why the MVP on this one is Organized Noize’s Sleepy Brown dropping some real Superfly slick shit on the chorus.
After this comes another funky peach called Claimin’ True, followed by a skit called Club Donkey Ass before we get to my favourite track on the album.
Actually, listening back to this one now, Funky Ride may very well be my favourite Outkast tune.
It’s also a departure from the rest of the album, veering notably from the hiphop vibe into R&B territory, albeit with a notably retro p funk sensibility.
Instead of rapping we have vocals by Society of Soul, which consisted of the original Organized Noize crew (Rico Wade, Sleepy Brown and Ray Murray) joined by Espraronza and Big Rube.
Funky Ride is essentially a slowdance track, albeit one featuring a TR-808 as its beating heart.
That drum machine is arguably the most hiphop thing about the track, which is a stretch since hardly anyone was using 808s in hiphop in 1994.
Plus we got the guitar, and it’s not a subtle guitar either, it’s a full-on rawk guitar.
And yeah, you might say there’s a strong influence from Funkadelic here, which is true. George Clinton’s DNA is all over this album. Of course this is 1994 we’re talking about here, when Clintons were getting their DNA all over all sorts of things, but I digress.
So yeah, I hear traces of Funkadelic here, but I hear Frank Zappa on this more than anything.
And no, I’m not just saying that because some chick seems to be having an extended orgasm solo for the duration of the track. (Sounds like a fun time in the Dungeon though.)
(Another track I have to mention here is Kool and the Gang’s Summer Madness, in terms of tone and tempo the two blend together seamlessly.)
As I listen back to this track it’s amazing to think this was from 1994. Like I said, this album slipped by me at the time and didn’t discover Outkast until the early 2000s and even then, this track in particular, sounded fresh.
After Funky Ride we get another skit called Flim Flam followed by Git Up, Git Out, the second appearance of Goodie Mob.
Love the message on this one. Many of the greatest hiphop tracks promote consciousness, knowledge and empowerment, but sometimes we need something a little more more grounded than that.
Sometimes in life we don’t need words of encouragement, just need a good solid kick up the ass.
And that’s what this track is.
Put it in your headphones, go outside for a walk and listen to the chorus. That’s some real motivational speaking right there.
True Dat (Interlude) comes next. Love the sentiment here too, “an outcast is someone who is not considered to be part of the normal world, he is looked at differently.”
Amen to that.
Then, as if to prove the point, we get to Crumblin’ Erb, a jazzy funk track all about the herb followed by Hootie Hoo, which, always gave me strong Cypress Hill vibes.
D.E.E.P. comes next, another darker vibe to this one, with a slammin’ beat, slinky high hats and dense layers of samples. Again, gotta give full production for this track, really on point considering it’s a debut album. Organized Noize bringing it once more.
As if to hammer the point home, we get Player’s Ball (Reprise), revisiting the breakout track which dropped the Southern gauntlet, giving the likes of Dre and RZA a run for their money.
It’s a shorter and slightly different twist on the tune, which I gotta say, kinda sums this album all up frankly. It’s a different twist on hiphop generally, something new and exciting.
Man, what a decade the 90s was though. With ground-breaking new sounds being dropped literally every five minutes. And the world of hiphop was no exception.
Are You An Outkast? I Know I Am.
“East, West, just points on the compass”, so said the titular villain of the 1962 Bond debut, Doctor No.
Outkast delivered us from an incessant media fixation with longitudinal bovine disputes by reminding us all that hiphop has nothing to do with geographic coordinates.
Organized Noize’s production, meanwhile, dropped some new flavour to the scene. It was fresh and exciting but at the same time felt reassuringly familiar, taking us back to the big boom-bap of the 808 and beyond, to a time when live musicians played jams and rappers spit rhymes on top.
New York hiphop originally evolved from disco. West coast hiphop was built on a bedrock of pillaged funk. But then the South brought back the soul. And it used that as a Trojan horse to launch a Southern invasion.
More Southern groups followed, and then other regions of the US joined the fray. All of a sudden we had a multi-region battle royale and hiphop crews everywhere realised they had to up their game.
Which they did – and the result was a glorious golden age for music.
In 94 alone we had we also had game-changing albums from Gang Starr, Warren G, Method Man, House of Pain, Keith Murray, Biggie and the Beastie Boys – all dropping within months of each other.
So many classics… and they’re all on my list for review, so hold tight crew.