Outkast - Liberation

"Got more juice than Zeus'"

Album: Aquemini [3rd album]
Recorded: Atlanta, Georgia
Genre: Hip Hop, Southern Hip Hop
Album Release: September 29th 1998
Length: 8:46
Producer: Outkast
Vocalist: Andre [age 23], Big Boi [age 23], CeeLo Green, Erykah Badu & Big Rube
Label: Arista Records, LaFace Records

Official Audio

Charts, Streams & Sales

Canada (albums): x1 gold
UK (albums): x1 silver
US (albums): #2 [x3 platinum]
Spotify: 16,700,000 +
YouTube Music: 9,100,000 +
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

Bass, drums, piano, percussion

Details

• Sometimes you have to marvel at people on top of their game. By the end of 'Aquemini', Outkast had mastered their craft to go beyond hip hop and make music that was also an amalgamation of funk, soul and jazz.
  
  The experimental 'Liberation' is nearly nine minutes long and only the first two feature Andre and Big Boi. The rest is comprised of singing, rapping and crooning from a variety of guest stars, including the nineties soul queen Erykah Badu and the larger than life CeeLo Green. It's like a traditional hip hop posse cut, only the rhymes are mixed with spoken word, soul and R&B.
  
  Another way Outkast moved beyond traditional hip hop is by using live instrumentation, which had been done before but with less ambition. 'Aquemini' featured intricate compositions made by Andre & Big themselves, with the help of various session musicians. It was hip hop from living people instead of from a crate.
  
  For the most part, hip hop is created using a sampler or a DAW, and a stack of old funk, jazz or soul records. 'Aquemini' featured live recordings from bass guitars, drums, electric guitar, horns, piano, strings, synthesizer, woodwind instruments and a violin, as well as the traditional use of sampling and DJing. This itself wasn't revolutionary, but the way jazz, hip hop, funk and soul were used as building blocks to create something new, was.
  
  'Aquemini' at its peak, like on 'Spottie' and 'Liberation', isn't only some of the best hip hop ever made, but some of the best music, because it increased the scope of the genre in a way that didn't seem possible before and hasn't been replicated since.
  
  People see 'Stankonia', Outkast's album from 2000, as doing the same thing as 'Aquemini', but the latter began with hip hop as a foundation and went beyond it, while the former started as something more. Which is to say that as Outkast, in particular Andre, grew as musicians the hip hop in their work became less prominent. Andre's album from 2023, 'New Blue Sun', didn't include any hip hop whatsoever, but his directions of travel was clear decades ago.
  
  'Aquemini', is for me, the point where Outkast have the right amout of raw hip hop for it to be considered their peak, especially within the groups core genre.
  
  
• 'Aquemini' is an aquarius and a gemini combined. Big Boi is an aquarius and Andre a gemini.
• Erykah Badu gave birth to Andre's kid in 1997. [see Outkast - Ms. Jackson]
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• 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
  

Artwork