For the gatekeepers on the coasts, Southern rap didn’t even belong in the conversation they considered it booty music made by backwoods posers. At the center of these swirling trade winds sits Atlanta, which has come to define the mainstream (Mike WiLL Made It, TI, Lil Jon), and the vanguard (iLoveMakonnen, Young Thug, Migos).īack in 1995, however, hip-hop was a closed system guarded by the East and West Coast, and a battle raged over which side truly represented the culture. There’s a guy in Calcutta remixing a Gucci Mane song right now. Jamaican dancehall has wormed its way into chart-topping hits. How had they brought teenage white girls and middle-aged black men to the same place, for a shared purpose? How could they provoke such wildly varying reactions within a single crowd? And what did this say about the legacy and future of Outkast? This continued throughout Outkast’s eclectic set - energy constantly shifted like tides, as different pockets of the crowd perked up or simmered down depending on the flavor, tempo, and age of the song being played.Īs I danced hard enough to make my fellow concertgoers nervous and uncomfortable, I wondered how Outkast was doing this. The track should come with an advisory warning: May Cause Listeners to Lose Their Heads and Shed Two Gallons of Sweat.Ī comedown was inevitable after an opener like “B.O.B.” But as Outkast settled into their set, I noticed something funny during deeper cuts like “ATLiens” and “Hootie Hoo”, the younger pockets of the crowd would begin shuffling and checking their phones, the hallmarks of people who aren’t totally feeling it.

It was Governor’s Ball 2014, and Outkast had just kicked off their 20th-anniversary show with “B.O.B.”, a blistering drumn’n’bass-gospel-rave-rap attack unlike anything that’s come before or since. It was pandemonium on the grassy field, a sea of thousands writhing and thrashing as if the world was coming to an end.

We are re-running some of our best music features this week during SXSW. Editor’s Note: This article originally ran 27 July 2015.

Outkast stankonia sampler