Having gained leverage with the success of their first two records, the group was given greater creative control for what would eventually become Aquemini – an album that represented the complexities of its creators – an Aquarius and a G emini – and their unique collaborative chemistry. While ATLiens was a creative, critical, and commercial breakthrough for OutKast, André and Big Boi aimed to expand upon its success with their third album. Additionally, the sci-fi motifs of ATLiens only further magnified the differences between OutKast and their contemporaries. By this point, André had given up many of the trappings of his new found stardom (most notably drugs), while Big Boi had recently become a father. Incorporating live instrumentation and atmospheric production, André and Big Boi explored a wide variety of topics, many of which reflected a stark contrast to the “gangsta” themes that dominated most hip-hop of the era. Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik was an impressive debut – and a remarkably-assured statement for a pair of nineteen-year-olds – but it was on the group’s follow-up, 1996’s ATLiens, that they truly began tapping into a unique sound. By 1993, Benjamin (now calling himself André 3000) and Patton (aka Big Boi) had hooked up with the production group Organized Noize and caught the attention of LaFace Records, who would release their first LP the following year. Attending a magnet program for visual and performing arts at Tri-Cities High School, the duo became fast friends – despite the many contrasts in their personalities – and formed OutKast shortly after meeting. Benjamin was a native of the East Point community of Atlanta, and Patton was the new kid in town – having recently moved from Savannah with his aunt and siblings. Upon being named as the “Best New Rap Group” of 1995, a shower of boos descended upon a duo of twenty-year-olds from Atlanta that had once planned to call themselves The Misfits, but – apparently upon learning of Glenn Danzig’s band – had settled on a variant spelling of a synonym, “outcast.” As they collected the hardware earned for their 1994 debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, André Benjamin – barely out of his teens – exclaimed to an audience that was only united in their disapproval of his presence onstage, “the South got something to say.”Īndré Lauren Benjamin and Antwan André Patton met as sixteen-year-olds in 1992. – the ceremony also signaled the moment of arrival for an act that was neither tethered to New York or Los Angeles. While the feud would continue to escalate from that point – eventually playing a possibly-significant role in the murders of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.
The 1995 Source Awards – the second annual showcase of the industry’s brightest stars – represented the most public moment yet of the burgeoning feud, when Death Row CEO Suge Knight took a thinly-veiled swipe at Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, head of the New York-based Bad Boy Records.
In the mid-1990s, the world of hip-hop music was largely defined by an intense rivalry between East Coast and West Coast artists. It would represent a new high-water mark for the Atlanta duo, and go on to become one of the most revered albums in hip-hop history. OutKast’s masterful third record expanded upon the stylistic and thematic growth displayed on 1996’s ATLiens.