An Investigation: Is ‘ATLiens’ OutKast’s Best Album?

I’m tripping – in every sense of the word imaginable.

It’s 10:04 p.m. in Southwest Atlanta as cold sweats surround me and artificial turf pierces into my back. I’ve been sprawled out on the basement floor of this Airbnb Experience for what feels like eternity. Suddenly, my polyphonic ringtone — “Hip Hop Police” by Chamillionaire — snaps me out of my nightmare state.

“Detective Stonebrook, where the hell are you?”
“Slim Calhoun, is that you?” I ask.

“Dammit, Stonebrook, it’s Lieutenant Berry,” my superior stammers. “I told you to cancel your work line after we threw you off the Harlow case. You’re washed up; the department still has a warrant out for you planting his album at Jill Scott’s merch table.”

Sobriety hits like funnel cake in a Target parking lot. Just months ago, I was thrown off the force at OKPD for running rogue on an unapproved investigation. See, I was sure that Jack Harlow’s Monica album was, in fact, his Electric Circus. 

It was a take deemed so disgraceful they took my badge and my dignity. 

“Look, Berry, I booked two nights at The Dungeon,” referencing the swampy studio house turned influencer-coded auberge backed by Big Boi and Joe Gebbia. “ATLiens turns 30 this week, and I’m convinced it’s the best OutKast album, no matter what the Academy or comment sections say.”

“This is your last chance, Stonebrook,” Berry huffs. “Mess up another self-assigned assignment, and we’ll both be fired.” He hangs up, and the earpiece on my Motorola Razr is wetter than that s—t Makonnen used to sell.

I don’t know if it’s Berry’s baritone voice or the effects of the gluten-free cacao chip brownie wearing off, but I feel startled and inspired. I’ve got to get to work.

Friday, 10:17 PM // The Funky Ride Begins

The OutKast catalog, commercially speaking, has fewer misses than Kyler Korver at the free throw line. Even Idlewild and their greatest hits collection each went Platinum. Perhaps the whole world loves it when you do get down.

Despite the perceived potholes, each lowpoint project has hits. The compilation album gave Killer Mike his “Live at the BBQ” moment, providing TRL airplay to pop tags and run jewels. “Hollywood Divorce” saw Lil Wayne stay on subject during his ADHD ascent. Better yet, that sole song allowed Snoop Dogg to make up for his cameo in Frankie Muniz’s Racing Stripes – and me buying it on Blu-Ray.

As expected, the light work of addressing their worst work is completed. Due diligence is done, and my mental sweat has started. 

Saturday, 9:29 AM // Signs of the Time

You don’t get into this line of work without a little childhood trauma. When I was a wee 10 years old, a trip to Tower Records left me so scared that I’m in Atlanta right now, attempting to pick up the pieces of a mismanaged mall visit that even Auntie Anne’s lemonade or a free bourbon chicken sample couldn’t fix.

On an Autumn Tuesday, I made the grave mistake of buying Trick Daddy’s www.thug.com and the Blade soundtrack instead of Aquemini or Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life. Until a late night in Atlantic City two decades later, it lived as the worst $37.49 I’d ever spent.

Not only did my Little League coach veto “Nann” as my walk-up song, but I had to discover the greatness of Aquemini beyond singles, through burnt copies that kept me from seeing two-thirds of one boob. 

Revisiting my regrets and Kast’s greatness, it's immediately evident that Aquemini may in fact be the group’s best album. The entire A-side is momentous and prolific, featuring full-body beats like the country funk of “Rosa Parks” and the big mad-meets-brilliant MCing on “Return of the G.” Even the skits lube the landings for what would otherwise be tough transitions, making a frankly all-over-the-place run of songs incredibly cohesive.

As I pay penance for my pre-teen taste, the realities of the album’s back half smack me like a GI Jane joke I should’ve kept to my damn self. Sure, picking your least favorite song off Aquemini is like vocalizing your least favorite apostle not named Judas. However, the cassette-coded sequencing makes the B-side flip abrupt in the streaming era. Yes, “Da Art of Storytelling Pt. 1” and “SpottieOttieDopaliscious” are canon, but the surrounding songs are, dare I say, vibe killers? Let’s just say they’re not the tracks Prince would tell them to play on tour.

Hell, if I admitted to liking Kid Cudi’s cover “Down & Out” more than the OG “Chonkyfire,” would OKPD burn my badge and take back my pension?

“Snap out of it, Stonebrook,” I tell myself. “These hare-brained Harlow takes are what got you in this situation in the first place.”

A cold cup of coffee brings me back to my bearings, sharpens my focus, and curbs my oversharing. Unevenness aside, the high points on Aquemini are almost unmatched. 

The arrangements on “Synthesizer” are indebted to every influence of their past, while the lyrics forecast fears felt 28 years later. Aesthetic alterations and microwave attention spans? 3K might have an IG today, but he damn sure doesn’t post. Fake tough talkers trying to play actual ballers like a dildo? Maybe we need Big Boi running security at the damn Atlanta Dream games.

The title track thesis, while humble in delivery, subconsciously scoffs at so-called peers in shiny suits who could never and would never rap over a beat so sparse and bizarre by comparison. It addresses the duo’s unorthodox creative kinship, seeing a genre without borders while being keenly aware of everything and everyone within its trapped domain.

“Good grief, this is indeed the hardest shit since MC Ren,” I tell myself.

I take a seat on the green velvet sofa and wipe the sweat from my brow. Perhaps this anniversary investigation in Atlanta was really just catharsis to heal my own buyer’s remorse trauma. The type of undercover work trip that publicly prepares you for the admission that you also bought Devil Without A Cause on that same Tower Records release day.

Only God knows why.

Saturday 1:06 PM // I stank I can? I stank I don’t?

After taking down two orders of Thai-seasoned catfish and grits at Oretha’s, I pour my fourth cup of coffee and unwind in the game room. I shoot a few shots on the pool table and take a twirl on the stripper pole, contemplating what life would be like if I leaned into leisure in my adolescence instead of being hellbent on becoming a private eye.

The nostalgia, or perhaps a baby oil allergy, causes me to tear up quickly. No time for feelings, there’s work to be done. I approach the point in the catalog with the most core memories attached to it. 

Stankonia, in real time, felt like OutKast’s loudest album. Running it back during my solo stay at The Dungeon, this sentiment runs true. Utterly insane singles like “Ms. Jackson” and “So Fresh, So Clean” still sound timeless, never once registering as if they were made with the intention to appeal. They act as a Trojan horse for a fortified modern funk album that’s chaotic in composition, with “B.O.B.” serving as the most ruckus-and-palatable experiment this side of Newton's Prism. 

But is Stankonia actually in the running for the best OutKast album? Upon investigating, I don’t think so.

The messier, more aggressive album cuts (“Gasoline Dreams,” “Snappin’ & Trappin,’” “Gangsta Shit”) push the envelope on fusing funk with rap, but don’t land or stick quite like their best B-sides. Paisley Park homages like “Toilet Tisha” don’t quite catch the Purple One they’re chasing. The skits are funny, but they don’t segue as smoothly as earlier work.

The highs are high on Stankonia, but the lows leave you waiting for the Southern smoothness of predecessors and the polished finish of their next project. Heck, that sounds a lot like the time I chased Jack Daniels with lavender-scented Lysol.

Needing a nap, I disconnected the cable and turned the lights out.

Saturday, 3:27 PM // Double Dutch

I plug the cable back in and cue up Who’s Your Caddy. After a palate cleanser of farting from Faizon Love, Lieutenant Berry brings me back to Earth.

“Dammit, Stonebrook, I can’t have you running up the company card at Trapeze. Where are you in this ATLiens investigation?”

“I needed a nightcap, and I had to make good on my monthly Discord membership. It’s coming along; I haven’t got to ATLiens —”

Cut off, I can’t hear what Lieutenant Berry says next, but it’s loud and feels like a whole rotary phone being ripped out of a wall. A dial tone replaces a reply. 

“Damn, my detective instincts haven’t atrophied a bit,” I smirk to myself.

Trusting my process, I embark on Speakerboxxx/The Love Below: the divorced double album that saw Big Boi and Dre produce in parallel, multiplying their accolades. It’s both the most and least OutKast album of all OutKast albums, allowing each artist to stretch their personal prowess without restraint or concessions. In turn, it lacks tension, and even more so, production from Organized Noize.

Over the course of almost 2.5 hours, SB/TLB atones for almost all of Stankonia’s sins, sharpening ghetto-funk futurism (“Intro,” “GhettoMusik”) and later landing loud posse cuts (“Tomb of the Boom," “Flip Flop Rock”). The greatest growth, however, is 3K presenting his Prince pivot in a fully fleshed manner that merges his greatest gifts, like the heartwarming humor on “God Interlude” and the passionate, jagged rapping on “Spread.” Nodding to his hero, he showcases The Artist Formerly Known as’s ability to blur gender and evoke unlikely intimacy on immortal tracks like “She Lives in My Lap” and “Pink & Blue”.

With all that said — not to mention an Album of the Year Grammy, Diamond certification, and f—g “Hey Ya!” — does this really have the right to be named the best OutKast album if they never quite share the steering wheel? It can’t, can it?

For now, I’m filing this under maybe, knowing the real work and another night at Trapeze are both on the horizon.

Saturday, 5:29 PM // Fear & Loathing in Atlanta

I came here to do one thing. Well, two things. Okay, three. 

First, forgive myself for my pre-teen decision-making at Tower Records; second, devour the baby-back ribs at Trapeze; and, most importantly, come to a conclusion on whether ATLiens is, in fact, the best OutKast album.

When reaching out to other members of the force, or even frantically ranking hip-hop’s greatest sophomore albums, the stars align at ATLiens. So rarely does a second effort establish an act as ascendant beyond the audience’s wildest dreams, while capable of creating sounds no mere mortal even considered.

Thus, ATLiens is all of that. Retreating behind the boards and venturing to outer space, André and Big Boi double down on all the sophomore album tropes of adjusting to success and appearing more mature while also offering something odder, darker, and deeper than just about anyone else has been able to land.

It’s their tightest album and, quite literally, their definitive work, when considering the sonics, aesthetic, and designation that come to mind when thinking of their output and successors. The five-track run from “Two Dope Boyz” to “Elevators” is innovative, introspective, and outsidery in its approach and perspective. A lack of skits and skips wields something smoother and leaner than their transformative follow-ups.

Coming to the obvious conclusion on the company dime is enough to either get my badge back or get invoiced for this Airbnb. But before I go forward with my findings, I must look back under one more stone.

Sunday, 1:11 AM // Back For the First Time

With barbecue sauce and body glitter smeared across my favorite Chaps polo, an unlikely inclination stares me straight in the eye.

A progressive rap outfit couldn’t possibly peak… on arrival? The whole premise seemed so counterintuitive that I almost didn’t revisit Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik in the very house where it was recorded.

Sure, the depth and delivery of the lyrics from each 18-year-old make me wonder just how much the information era has robbed today’s youth of original thought and observation. But still, a group defined by reinvention couldn’t possibly have their first album stand as their best.

Yet and still, an intrusive thought enters my mind: are L.A. Reid and Babyface the unsung heroes on Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik? Hooks, choruses, and composition are fully formed and almost formulaic without ever feeling trite. Go ahead, hum each one to yourself; they live in your memory like the first time you got buzzed off an Elmer’s bottle.

It makes no sense. As much as OutKast’s career thrives in pushing the margins of music and turning rap records into a jam session, there’s something to be said about how easy and digestible their debut is.

I find myself lying on that same patch of turf in The Dungeon, down to two albums but without an obvious answer.

Sunday, 9:05 AM // An Exit-tenssial Crisis

As I strip the sheets from my bed and check out of The Dungeon, I’m still uncertain if ATLiens or Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik is the better album. 

If Aquemini kept pace on the B-side, the whole conversation would be a wash. Perhaps even if Speakerboxxx/The Love Below were retrofitted in a Blueprint 2.1 packaging, it’d take the cake. But you don’t become a detective by playing the what-if game… or maybe that’s exactly what being a detective is. 

Testing a theory, I ask myself: if OutKast ended after ATLiens or Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, how would they be remembered, and what would their legacy be?

Truth be told, there are many a alternative hip-hop act that struck gold early on but couldn’t quite carve a lane towards longevity or improve on their original premise. It made me wonder, if Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik were the only OutKast album, would they be remembered more like the Pharcyde or Souls of Mischief? Black Moon or Black Star? 

History has a way of forgetting brilliance in a brief moment, even if it’s ahead of its time. It’s easy to imagine a world where OutKast is beloved by ball-knowers and backpackers if they dropped only their debut, and then dropped off the face of the earth without a “Skew It on the Bar-B” or “Prototype” to ever exist.

ATLiens, on the other hand, was an instant and enduring piece of vernacular. While built on the back of its predecessor, the sophomore album wasn’t just the South having something to say; it was an entirely new soundscape that would shift a city and shape a catalog. The same way The Low End Theory cemented ATCQ and inspired countless kids, ATLiens allowed André and Big Boi’s star to rise quite literally, shining a light on Atlanta and planting seeds for Pharrell, Kid Cudi, Kendrick Lamar, and more to one day blossom. 

ATLiens is OutKast’s best and most important album. It’s complete and cohesive, as innovative as it is expansive. 

Case closed.