Outkast - SpottieOppieDopaliscious

"One N word took his shirt off saying 'who else wanna fuck with Hollywood Cole?'"

Album: Aquemini [3rd album]
Recorded: Athens, Georgia, USA
Genre: Hip Hop, Southern Hip Hop
Album Release: September 29th 1998
Length: 7:07
Producer: Outkast
Vocalist: Andre [age 23], Big Boi [age 23], Sleepy Brown
Label: Arista Records, LaFace Records

Official Animation

Charts, Streams & Sales

Canada (albums): x1 gold
UK (albums): x1 silver
US (albums): #2 [x3 platinum]
Spotify = 61,000,000 +
YouTube Music = 28,000,000 +
Pitchforks Top 200 Tracks of the 90s: #16
Hip Hop Connection Best Albums 1995 - 2005: #11
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time [2003 edition]: #500
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time [2020 edition]: #49

Credits

Contains drums, percussion, guitar, bass, horns, and brass

Details

• In high school Outkast would regularly go to a nightclub called Charles Disco. The events in the song are set there although it isn't based on real life. Andre said that in real life he passed out drunk before he could get in.
  
  
• The song was originally supposed to feature Erykah Badu. Badu would go on to feature on the track 'Liberation' from the same album. Badu gave birth to Andre's kid in 1997.
  
  
• Big Boi said during an AMA on Reddit that the title of the song means "a girl that is superfine, bad, sexy, intelligent and jazzy all at the same time." His use of the word jazzy brings to mind the song 'Jazzy Belle' from Outkast's previous album 'ATLiens'. "Belle" in French means beautiful girl and many southern states were originally French colonies. The word belle wouldn't be found in hip hop from New York or L.A.. In L.A. the equivalent word would be the Spanish "chica".
  
  Back when hip hop was dominated by east coast vs west coast beefs, Outkast were carving a distinctly southern niche that twenty years later would dominate hip hop in the form of trap music.  'SpottieOppieDopaliscious', features the lyric "so now you back in the trap, just that, trapped".
  
  Southern hip hop has a French and a Caribbean influence which isn't as prominent in other American forms of the genre. The music is loud, sexual and expressionistic in a way that marks it as distinct from its east coast and west coast counterparts with a few exceptions such as Mach Hommy. The flows of French emcees remind me of southern American styles and the influence is also felt in some of their vocal inflections, word choices and fashion sense. East coast styles are, in contrast, moodier, while the west coast has a strong latin influence.
  
  

  

  Andre's French influenced fashion
  

  
  As well as having unique ethno-cultural influences in the deep south slavery is also a firm cultural artefact that can't be extricated from the present. The rappers take the symbols of the confederacy, invert them and use them as their own, whether that be the confederate flag, or the prevalent use of the N-word.
  
  Southern hip hop, through its geography and history, has a deeper relationship with slavery than its east coast or west coast cousins. Slave plantations littered the south. The Klan was founded in Tennessee as a vehicle for white southern racism. While today, New York and California are bastions for the progressive Democratic party the southern states vote Republican and some people in such states even want to reinstate the confederacy. Even at present, racism is more prevalent in the south, so when evaluating southern hip hop it's essential to consider this key environmental factor.
  
  Dating back to the slave trade, the n-word was used as a slur, so black people today use it as a greeting. The confederate flag was a symbol of southern independence and continued advocacy for the slave trade so modern rappers drape themselves in it to take ownership of their history and infuriate the racists. They take a symbol of white pride and use it to adorn their person, simultaneously reminding people of the wrongs of slavery while also taking away the symbol from white racists. The rapper Ludacris went as far as wearing an entire outfit made of the confederate flag. See below for Andre's more muted approach.
  
  

  

  Andre wearing a confederate belt buckle
  



• "Iceberg Slim used to put out albums talking on beats and I was like, this is cool. I think I laid down my verse first and Big just came in. But instead of spoken word, Big likes to call it smoking word. That was his smoking word." (Andre)



• 'Aquemini' is an aquarius and a gemini combined. Big Boi is an aquarius and Andre a gemini.
  
• There is a cover version by Hypnotic Brass Ensemble recorded in 2010. 
  
  
• A lot of the music on 'Aquemini' came from jam sessions. Andre would arrange the music and Big Boi came up with the hooks. If you surround yourself with talented people then a lot of the hard things have a tendency to happen by themselves. Listening to the finished product, it can sound like genius at work, because how do you make a record like that from the ground ground up. The simple reality is that the album wasn't made that way.
  
  When a musicians came up with a good bit the others would jam over the top. Every musician knows their own instrument like the back of their hand so the trick is to make it come together organically. Sometimes you just have to get yourself out of the way.

Artwork