One Song - Outkast's "Ms. Jackson"

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

This week on One Song, we're re-sharing one of our favorite episodes, possibly the greatest ever apology song ever recorded: It’s OutKast’s multi-platinum ode to a complicated relationship and ��baby’s drama mama”, Ms. Jackson. One Song Spotify Playlist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, One Song Nation, we're off this week, but we'd like to revisit one of our favorite early episodes of the pod, our episode on Miss Jackson by hip-hop legends, Outcast. That's right, Diallo. This is the Grammy Award winning song that Rolling Stone plays at number 55 on their list of best songs of the 2000s. Outcast isn't just from my hometown. We grew up in the same neighborhood. This one's very special to me. So until next week, enjoy our one-song episode on Miss Jackson. The music you're listening to right now is by Andre 3000. It's off of his new album, New Blue Sun. And if you're wondering why I am using my NPR voice is strictly to point out that some of you actually fell for that. Some of you actually thought that that was music from his album because you have not listened to it. You're telling people you listen.

You haven't. No. As you can tell from what luxury is now playing, we're going further back in time to the year 2000. This episode of one song goes out to all the baby mamas, mama mamas, baby mamas, mamas, moms, all the mamas and all the babies. That's right. On this episode of one song, we're apologizing a trillion times and talking about Outcast as seminal three times platinum,

Billboard chart topping owed to complicated relationships. That's right. We are talking outcasts in the song, Miss Jackson. If you're nasty. Different Miss Jackson. Oh, for real. I'm an actor, writer. director and sometimes DJ Dea Diallo Riddell.

And I'm producer DJ and songwriter luxury, aka the guy who sometimes frequently, often even talks about and even whispers about interpolation. And this is one song. My friend, I am so excited to be talking about not just Miss Jackson, but about Outcast. I mean, I've been waiting for this episode. I am so stoked too.

We were full around earlier, but I was playing it in the style of jazz food because Andre 3000 announced that he was dropping a new instrumental. album called New Blue Sun. So perfect timing we've had a chance to all culturally absorb this record. I feel like Al-CAS is back in the public eyes, back out there in the zeitgeist. And what a perfect time to talk about not just their crazy career path. Right. But in particular, the Stankonia album, you know, which is sort of like at the halfway mark of their career. So I think, you know,

what better timing could it be? All right. So let's talk a little bit about Outcast. Let's talk about Stankonia, first of all, just to set the stage on how, like, central this album and the song is to hip-hop culture, if not global culture. Stankonia, not only was it three times platinum, but the single, Miss Jackson, was the first outcast single to hit number one on Billboard. At the 2001 Grammy Awards, it won two Grammys, one for Best Rap Album, and Miss Jackson won, for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or a Group. And out of the Pantheon of All-Time albums, it's ranked 64 on the 500 Best Albums of All Time, not just Best Hip-Up album, just best albums. So, Gialo, I want to start by asking you this. Ms. Jackson drops in 2000.

So right around hip-hop's 25th birthday, what does this song say about the evolution of the genre of hip-hop? It's so interesting. I feel like it's a group maturing and it's also a genre maturing. Like, if you think about it, like, this song is about, you know,

the sloppiness of breakups. You know what I mean? Like, or, you know, having children out of wedlock, you would assume, like, you know, this is, there's no surprise here. Andre had been in a serious relationship with Erica Badu.

The Miss Jackson and the song is based on her mom. Right. But, I mean, it's a very mature thing to be right. I mean, like, if you think about it was literally only, okay, this is 2000, 15 years earlier, you still got like, you know, run DMC, it's like that. That's the way it is. You know, he still got Curtis Blow.

Like, these are great songs. Right. These are essentially like party songs. Party rock and braggadocio. Party rocking, yeah. Some bragging going on. my Adidas, my shoes are better than you're like this is literally talking about the intricacies of a relationship. So it's it's almost bizarre that, you know, hip-hop's been around for 50 years.

And exactly the halfway mark for hip-hop, you know, you've got this great, you know, flowering and maturing that had been kind of coming along throughout the 90s. I mean, like I feel like the 90s is when hip-hop starts taking on more complicated subjects and albums like the miseducation of Lauren Hill, you know, Outcast records, you know, there are more and more people, you know, trying to sort of expand what the genre can talk about. We're talking about expanding the genre. We're literally talking about that moment at the Source Awards. We're expanding that

the geography of hip-hop. You want to talk a little bit about what happened in 1995 at the Source Awards? Those who know me know I'm from Atlanta. You know, Outcast, when he was at the sorts of words saying, you know, the South has something to say like, you know, we heard that and we had been supporting

Al-Qas. I want to take a step back and just talk about Atlanta real quick. And, you know, Atlanta's sort of a interesting city from on the hip-hop map at the time, you know, you basically had two camps. You know, I figured like, this is the insider view because you're growing up, you are in Atlanta. I am growing up in Atlanta. Okay, I went to high school. They're older than me, but I went to high school with the Goody Mob. You know what I mean? I went to the same mall as Outcast, Goody Mob, organized noise. Oh, we all went to Greenbrier Mall. And actually, that's something I want to talk about, too. So real quick, the hip hop map is that Atlanta at that time was between three places.

We had Miami booty shake music coming from Miami. We had West Coast, and I'm going to lump, sorry Texas, I'm going to lump the Texas rappers like Scarface and Rap a lot. You know, you had the West Coast rappers and N.W.A. and Dr. Dre and that whole sound. And then, of course, you know, some of us, I feel like in white schools, the punks didn't get along with the new romantics. Well, in my high school, there were clearly camps. Like, they're the kids who listen to West Coast and Texas, you know, for the lack of a better turn, gangster rap. And then there were, you know, sort of my click, which, you know, we were, we were nerdy. We got the homework done, y'all.

And we were more into De La Sol, Tricleckle. Yeah, there was a lot of, you know what group from Atlanta gets forgotten a lot is arrested development. Right. You know, like, the way that those guys dressed. Are they? What's that? They, outcast are not technically the first arrested developments on the radio. They've hits.

Listen, Atlanta had rappers, and I'm glad you bring this up. Atlanta had rappers, but, you know, like, as far as establishing an Atlanta sound, I don't know that we had that, like, speech and the rest of development, they felt very much like they went to, you know, Morehouse and Spelman, like what we call the Atlanta University, you know, the A.U schools. And I had people of my schools who dressed like that, and they had, like, Diggable Planet-style names. There was a guy in my high school, his name was Hashim,

but everybody called him Grasshopper. You know, like, there was like that, they dressed like hippies a lot, They dressed like, there was a lot of... Was that because he was so wise? Was that a karate kid thing? What is that? You know what? Like everybody, he tried to rap.

Me and my friends, we all tried to rap. We still have those raps committed to memory. I'm not going to do them today. But, you know, like, it was really, like, half the kids wanted to, you know, be about that NWA type life. Yeah. And the other half were really about, like, that De La Sol and Tribe called Quest type life. And, you know, rest of the development was there. We had a group called Y'all So Stupid.

That was very, like, very few people remember y'all so stupid. Shout out to Y'all so stupid. Shout out to y'all so stupid. Shout out to parental advisory, which was a group that was sort of in the same click as Outcast. And they went first. They were inspired by Tipper Gore's warning stickers. Yeah, well, listen, I'm telling you, PA, as they were short, if you listen to that first Outcast record, he gives a lot of shoutouts to PA. Interesting.

Because parental advisory was in that same. These are all proto, proto rap groups out of the dungeon family click. And they were more Tri-Cities. We're going to talk about the dungeon in a minute. We're going to talk about that gentleman. They were more tri-cities. I went to Mays. If you know the difference, like,

Mays was sort of like more middle-class tri-cities was still a little bit, still a little bit wild. But, like, we all congregated at Lennox Square Mall, at Greenbrier Mall. And if you know the history of our part of Atlanta, and I know I'm being verbose, but I got to get all this stuff out. If you think about our part of Atlanta,

it was white until literally 1961. It was almost solidly white. And then one black family, moved into Peyton Forest. And by the way, the dude was a doctor and a D-Day vet. Wow. Like, ideal neighbor material. Is he like a famous neighbor?

Clinton Warner, I believe. Dr. Warner. And famously moved into the Peyton Forest area. Wow. Every white family in the Peyton Forest neighborhood, which is all part of Cascade Heights where all of us are from. They panicked. Okay.

They actually built what was known as the Atlanta, Berlin, wall. And it was a wall that was to discourage any more black families from moving into the area after this man is very brave. This man is very brave. Oh, he's getting harassed all the time. Wow. But black families continue to move into the neighborhood, including my family, which moved

there in 1974. I went around yet, but like we moved into the Cascade Heights area. Our family did in 1974. But that's 1974. 1962, I think he moves in. I saw a report. By 1963. by July of 1963, over 160,000 white people had moved out of Southwest Atlanta.

Jesus Christ. In two years. In a span of three and a half years, you went from it being an all-white neighborhood by everything but the law itself to only 15 white families left in that neighborhood. It changed literally overnight. It was like a textbook example of white flight. And I bring all that up just to say that growing up in Southwest Atlanta, when I did, did late 70s. It was just like, it was like a black mecca. It was like it was, it was middle class. It was black. The white people didn't take their golf course. We had two golf courses in our area.

You had these beautiful homes with like these long lawns. And it was 100% black. And the reason I bring all that up is to say that if you're black in an all black environment, well, then suddenly you're not known as like the black guy. Does that make sense? And so at my high school, the jocks were black and the nerves were blacks. The bullies were black. The bleed were black. and I look at Andre and I look at his path and you just realize that this is what happens when people sort of are allowed to be more than just their skin tone and when they're able to say okay what's really going on inside with me

you know it makes sense that one guy is sort of like a street guy and another guy is like this amazing artistic poetry poetry guy it makes a lot of sense because in the cultural stew that is Atlanta you can be as, you know, you can be whatever you decide to be. But they're also friends, and they're also kind of, completing each other sentences, you know, two sides of the same point. And they also met in the mall, which is the hub of social activity in Atlanta.

Atlanta was a very special place to live if you were black growing up in the 80s and the 90s. It just was. And the city's a little bit different now, but it was that unique cultural stew that we all grew up in that allowed for us and TLC and And eventually the TIs and the ludicrouses and this whole wave of Atlanta artists to just blow up and do their thing. I mean, like, I feel like only Atlanta could have produced us when it did. So just before we get into the song, we'll take a quick step back, talk a little bit about the history of the band. And it actually starts, it's funny little fun fact.

It's funny to call them a band. I always think of rap groups. They're a band. They're a duo. They're a group. They're a band. They're a band. Well, it's funny because they are almost called the Misfits.

Like that's crazy. That's really funny to me. Because obviously outcast, misfits, AT aliens. These are all of a theme. Like these guys felt like outsiders. But once they found out, once Outcast found out that there was already a band called the misfits, who sound like this, by the way? Once they found out that that band existed already, they're like, we gotta find another name here.

Well, I think they were clearly talking to a lawyer at some point because I think the reason that the K is in the name is because there were some motorcycle enthusiasts with some black members known as the Outcast Motorcycle Club. Oh, really? Right. That's why the K is in there. Right, but they had an idea. They had a concept for this, for their artistic entity, whether or not we'll call it a band or a group or a duo. So the story of the band is, it's 1992. Y'all talked a little bit about organized noise. This is a group of three dudes, Rico Wade, Ray Murray and Sleepy Brown, who basically, and I think it was Rico Wade's literally

downstairs basement, but it's barely, it's barely a basement. There's a dirt floor. So they call it the dungeon. The dungeon. And, uh, This is where they start to make music. Yep. And there's a place that they could go. Yep. Hang out. And hang out.

And I think another family kind of unit. And I don't think that Sleepy, RICO, and Ray have gotten their flowers. I think organized noise is almost like the sauce. Like we all know. But like your typical person walking around listen to the music doesn't always know that these songs are produced. Yeah. How the music gets made behind the scenes. Everything from TLC's Waterfalls to Ludacriss's Saturday.

Oh! Like all the, like they've produced so. many songs. That's right. Yeah, anyway. That's right. Well, you're absolutely right. And this is where Outcast as like teenagers, literally, is where Andre and Antoine as like literally 17, 18 year olds are learning how to write music and make music together. This is probably as good a point as any for me to bring this up. The first time I ever saw Outcast music, I actually went to the store to buy a Wu-Tang CD. And I was just going through the bins as people typically do. And I remember pulling out a CD

where the guys had on Atlanta, they had on Atlanta Braves hats. And I was like, what? And I look on the back and they had a, an interlude. I didn't know at the time. I don't think I knew it was an interlude. But they had a thing that said,

welcome to Atlanta. It was like the fourth track on the album or something like that. This is Southern Playlistic. I had never heard. I was not used to seeing the word Atlanta. I was not used to it. I bought it unheard. I bought a CD.

I did not know the band. I was like, they got something. on here called Welcome to Atlanta, I'm down and I was immediately blown away. I just, what's so interesting to me is that it's, I'm not the first to say it, but the geographic

aspect of hip-hop, the story of hip-hop being such a geographic story. And if you've seen that great Netflix hip-hop evolution series, like every episode is about, we start in New York and then we go, you know, there's Atlanta, there's New Orleans, there's every single

city gets its own gets its own episode because every single city has its own story and every single story has very significant differences in what happened who was there. Every city. And I was just going to say just to finish that thought, while there is clearly an equivalent in other genres, like I definitely didn't grow up thinking about rock and roll being, although of course Metallica was a local band. I was kind of proud of them, Faith No More. I had some sense of the bands that were like local bands. I really, it wasn't a big part of my consciousness in the same way. Like I certainly didn't get excited that when I saw that a band was from

San Francisco in the same thing. Like, oh, the Jefferson Airplane is from San Francisco. go, whatever, who cares? Like a little bit of pride, but it didn't have the same significance to me, that clearly hip hop, the geographic centrality of hip hop. Yes, there's something about hearing the local guys rap about the very local things. It's connecting. I know what that is. That's me. I feel connected to this band. I feel connected to this band. They had so much love. And that, you know, again, shout out to the rest of development. Shout out to y'all so stupid. It was really outcast, organized noise, Mr. DJ, who is sort of like the Ali Shahid Muhammad of Outkass. This DJ does not get mentioned a lot.

Third or fourth guy, but he's in the crew. He's the third guy, technically, especially in the days of that first album. Goody Mob, they established what the dirty South sound was going to be. Like they were like, you know, as much as Seattle was established by Nirvana. Nirvana. And what's the other one? There's another one. Pearl Jam.

How could I miss it? Mud honey. Something trees. Screaming trees. Screaming trees. There's Seattle Grunge Band, right? As much as those grunge bands said, this is the sound of Seattle.

I feel like Alcass and Goody Mob and all those guys said, this is the sound of the South, distinctly the South. Not Texas, not Miami, but everything else. Alabama, South Carolina. But that meant a lot to you, because especially in this moment as we've been talking about, Atlanta, prior to Outcast, it exists a little bit culturally on the radar.

We're talking to rest of the development. But suddenly it explodes. It's huge. It's great. You're proud. And you recognize these individuals as people. Like you recognize the art they're making. It speaks to you on many, many levels, not the least of which is that you're from the

same place they are. And how exciting is that? It was a very exciting time to be from Atlanta. Another important thing about organized noise is that they're teaching outcast about songwriting and production. and one interesting thing that they're doing that's a little different. It's not the first time we've got on the West Coast

we've got Drey and the whole Death Row crew are doing alternatives to sampling based music, sampling based hip-hop. But organized noise in particular are really focused on how much instrumentation can we add. How much can we grab the talented bass players from the community?

Bring them into the studio and work with them and recreate ideas. And they are definitely in terms. And they're not not sampling. But the sampling becomes more of a sonic thing. It's less of a whole taking a whole two-bar loop of something and looping it. They're doing something completely different. I mean, the chronic, the chronic cannot be overstated how huge that.

I mean, the chronic is like the atom bomb of hip-hop. That chronic is the atom bomb, and it's the reason why they convince LaFace, like, literally LaFace to sign Alcast. Because they're uncomfortable. It sounds like L.A. Reed and LaFace records are not like their, it's not their expertise. These are R&B guys. These are like pop radio guys. And arrested, right? And we got organized noise keeps coming in and saying,

hey, look, we got these great, these two guys, Outcasts are going to be the next big thing. And L.A. Reader is not aware of, not comfortable with, not familiar with hip-hop, until the chronic comes out, sells a billion copies. He's like, I don't know much about this, but you guys keep telling me you got a hip-hop act that's going to blow up. I'm going to give, here's the green light.

I'm telling you, as an intern in the summer of 1995, Yeah. After Outcast's first album is actually out there. You know, like, it's out there. People are happy about it. Like, the city of Atlanta is happy about Outcast. You still got the sense, why is OutKast on an R&B label? And it was also surprising.

We had a legitimate rap label in town. We had So So Deaf, which had a little house right at the corner of Piedmont and Peachtree, which ironically is like walking distance to the La Face artists, the La Face offices, on Peach Tree. So, like,

They were within walking distance, but they were like worlds apart because so-so-deaf was, we already knew Germain DePrie, who, you know, he had like, I want to say he had a relationship with, uh, MC Shidey and DJ Smurf. And like, these are the guys in Atlanta who were making Miami-Base records. But then they had a huge, huge crossover success with Chris Cross. Like Chris Cross is jump. Like, if you were alive in 1991 and had a radio, you heard jump several times an hour. Like, jump was such a huge thing. Chris Cross became such a huge thing. So I imagine that between Dr. Dre selling all that he was selling.

And then this guy, Jermaine, yeah, yeah, yeah. Down the block selling a billion records. We just got to cross our fingers and jump in. In L.A.R.R. We're probably like, yo, we got to get on this wrap money. Right. Got to get some of this rap money. So they do, and they put out this 1993 comp, a very LaFace Christmas with Players Ball, which is ostensibly a Christmas song.

And what's funny about it? It's beginning to look a lot like what? Follow my every step. Exactly. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. It tricks you right off the bat with that first line. Andre came in strong. He was like, I'm already going to reinterpret.

Let's play that. You know, let's go for it. This is the version on the album. It's got the sleigh bells on it still. It's beginning to look a lot like wood. Follow my every step. Take no zone how I'm crap. I was about to go in depth.

This is the way I greet my season. I mean, I love that version. But when they took off the sleigh bells and redid it, I like this version better personally. No, okay. So this is what I want to talk about. This is called the extended remit. That's right.

This was very hard to find. Yes. I know my every step. Take no somehow I grip. I'm about to go. I said, croak if it ain't real ain't right. These chords in me are so beautiful. I sit my fifth.

I chill with Weston got my reason. Okay. So the version with Slay Bells. First off, I had all this stuff. I had all three versions. But let me tell you, the version that you just played, not only is it most people's favorite, but it was extremely hard to find.

Like, that's not the version that got a lot of play. It's not on the album on Spotify, technically, yeah. The album version was the one that got the most play, and it was in the music video and all this stuff, the version that you play, which goes by a couple of names, but I usually see an extended remix. Sometimes it's called extended TV remix. That was a really hard find.

I had to literally go on the nascent web and, like, find it because, like, it was on Japanese pressings and stuff like. But no, trust me, anytime you could break that one out at a party, which I eventually did find the 12-inch once I started DJing. That was the version that we all loved, love. And it is because of those piano chords. They're so sweet. Jazz. Absolutely. They're freaking beautiful.

Beautiful chords. They're like deep house chords. You literally put a deep house number. Yeah, well, as soon as you said that, about 19,000 laptops fired up and then put on garage band. Right. So this leads us all to 2000 and the fourth album, Stankonia, which coincides with the artist's growth, the band growth, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. worldwide popularity of Outcast has gone from being two teenagers in this dungeon to now they have their own studio. They're ready to break out. They actually buy Bobby Brown's studio. I heard that. They said they waited outside for Bobby Brown for like days on end. And he's older to them.

They renamed it Stank. Stank. Stank. I didn't know the, the Onya part, you know, Stank is stank, funky. But like the Onea, I was always like, that feels like a place. It feels like kind of like. It's supposed to be both a place and a pun. But literally it turns out to be the title of of a poster in Andre's bedroom called Plutonia. Comes from Plutonia, which is a futuristic city. So a place I imagine you can open yourself up. I think it's probably all those things. I mean, there's a-no, that was the-

No, but I'm saying like, stank on you sounds like I'm going to put that stank on you. No, that was what I always thought. It was just a pun. I think it's clearly a pun. I don't know why my mark. It's a pun in a place. That's all good. That's all good.

This is also at a time when Al-Kaz is saying, like, they're like, stank you very much. Like, they say that a lot in the interviews. But go ahead. I love the puns. though. I love like the wordplay. Like, we're going to get into it later. But even Andre 3000, the new record, like all of the song titles are so funny. Like, it's from the flute album.

He's a funny dude. He's a funny dude. A lot of humor between both of them. A lot of humor. And I want to talk about that at some point because I do feel like a lot of times, you know, people are like, who's better? Paul or John? Yeah. Or Mick and Keith or, you know, Guy or Tomas to the real heads. I feel like Outcast is strong because, you know,

As much as Andre kills it whenever he does guest versus, Big Boys have some amazing guest versus of his own. I like the two of them together because there is a, you know, I don't, the same way I'm like, Atlanta wasn't competing with itself to see who's going to be number. Like, I don't get the sense they're trying to occupy each other's lanes, you know what I mean? Like, they respect each other's creativity. There's so much mutual respect there. They bounce off each other. They love each other as brothers.

And at this point, they're ready to start producing for themselves. They gradually started acquiring other skills. Andres, they're like learning to play guitar and it turns out that he starts to write the song we're about to talk about today on guitar. And they bring in a third guy who's their touring DJ. That's David Mr. DJ Sheets. Who's been there from the beginning.

He's been there from the beginning. The three of them formed the Earthtone 111 production crew. So together with David, Mr. DJ Sheets, they form this Earthtone 3 production crew. And that is the new core operation. They're still working with organized noise. They actually do four songs on this record with them, not the least of which is so fresh and so clean.

An amazing track. Of course. And they are taking the cue from what they've already learned. They're bringing in live instrumentation from Atlanta Club musicians, and they're making their new record. They're making Stankonia. Which brings us to the song of the day, Miss Jackson, from the fourth album Stankonia.

Let's talk about it. Yeah, let's talk about it. First, I thought Miss Jackson was the, you know, it's just the past of the time. I thought it was the first single off this album. B-O-B was the first one. bombs over bad dag, which I really like that song. But apparently, like, critics loved it, and audiences were like, kind of weird, even for outcasts, and didn't really respond to it, even though it's got like, you know, a really upbeat,

drivey sound. But it's, it's Ms. Jackson that captured everybody's attention. So let's talk about it. We have the stems. And what is the first stem from this song that you want to play for us? First of, can I just say I'm excited that we're doing a hip-hop song with pure. stems. Like you said, it's not a lot of sampling. There is some sampling.

There is some sampling here. There's some creative, reuse of recorded material. Yeah, yeah. But if you will. But let's start with the stems. What's the first stem you got for us? Okay, so let's start with the drums because the song starts with that famous reversed sound. And this is what it is. So this is Raj Kala playing

the Kangas. I'll play it for you as it is in the mix first, and then I'll play it backwards so you can hear what that is. Here's how the song starts. reversed, in other words, forwards. Here's what was actually performed. Wow, that's nice. Yeah. It's just a guy playing the congas.

And that guy... And played backwards, that's what gets a... Yep, yep, yep. That's Rajkala playing congas, and then the tape was slipped backwards, okay? So we got that, and then we've got our beat. Let's listen to that. You can hear there's another backwards element there that I had.

It's a backwards I hat. So in the mix, you've got... Yeah, I was like, what instrument is that? Yeah. So that's the full beat right there, going to the whole song. That's incredibly dope. Incredibly dope. Wow, that's really cool.

All right. And then if you think that's cool, listen to this. This is on bass. We have an actual performer here as well. And what's cool is like, this guy is a legend in his own right. This is bass guitar as performed by Aaron Mills from the band Cameo. That'll bring the beats back in. with those backwards tie hatch.

And the backwards congas all together. And it's, when you know that it's, when you learn, when you learn that it's cameo, it's like, oh, yeah, of course that's a cameo. I want to hear candy. Let's hear something clear. I got candy queued up right here for you, baby. Oh, there you go. So, I feel like you have an idea.

But where Andre and, and, I want to say Andre and Andre and Big Boy, where their heads are at while they're making this album. Yeah, it's so funny to think about cameo specifically because those guys are like, those are guys are funny and crazy and like bringing ideas from all kinds of different sources into the funk, right? I mean, I think humor is strong in the Outcast family. Like, you know. Is that, is it strong in Atlanta? Is that an Atlanta? Listen, I'm always going to say, there's something. Hell yeah. I'll never forget when Andre got out of a song with Kesha of all people. He was like, I call it Akecha because she thinks it's good to her. You know, like, you know, yeah, that was like some low-hanging Atlanta humor fruit. And yet nobody beat him to it. So, you know, Andre, he was always going to come with some jokes.

He's always coming with some jokes. All right. Well, let's move on. We got some piano as well. This is another live performance. This is from Marvin Chans, Parkman. I don't know why his nickname is Chans, but this is what Chans. When Chans gets on the synth, this is what Chans like to do.

The music can only have one Marvin. All right. And here he is playing piano. I mean, I always thought that that was real. I heard that the first time. I was like, oh, they incorporated the wedding song. Yeah, that's all he's playing throughout the entire song, too. It was just that loop.

And it is the wedding, Marry Josh, right. But it's also got that, you know. Dean, Dean, Dean. Yeah, it's got that little part at the end. So it's not just, but it's brilliant. But that is an interpolation, if you will. Although technically it's more of a reference. Is that canon and D? What is that?

That is the bridal chorus from Richard Wagner's 1850 opera. Shout out to, Wagner. Longer, and it's long out of copyright. The Balkyries. Long out of copyright, so it's not protected. Anyone can, you can write a new song using that if you like. The Beethoven was a wedding march, right? So that's the Here Comes the Bride. It's often called Here Comes the Bride. It's not the technical neighbor. There you go, exactly.

And that also shows up, by the way, in the guitar part, which Dre is playing himself in the background. This is a little harder to hear, but it kind of cuts through the mix every now and then, especially at the end. But here's Andre 3000 on electric guitar. you don't know, Jimmy. A Wawa, Jimmy. Jimmy Hendrix, Wawa there. Totally. And that's happening throughout the whole song.

What's cool is that it's not a loop. He's just playing it over and over again. So it gets a little different every time. And he's not like, he's not Jimmy Hendrix. Alcass has always. A little wonky in a good way. They start at one place. And throughout their whole career, it's such a,

it's just like the Beatles in the sense that like even the casual observer can see. the, oh, the group that they are in 2000, or the group that they are, heaven forbid, by 2005, is not the same group that put out Southern Playlist of Cadillac Music in 1994. It's just not the same group. They're on. They're growing.

You're on the ride with them. You know, like, it's like, no, why should they stay the same? I mean, let them go wherever their imagination takes them. I'm excited to talk. We're going to continue through the stems, obviously. We're going to get to the vocals and everything else. And I can't wait to get through all of that. But I also can't wait to have, like, our big conversation about, like,

the current stuff that he's doing. Because I'm so excited about Andre 3000's creative journey and his creative, like, idea. And I want to talk about Big Boy because I feel like he has had a journey of his own. Listen, after the break, we'll be getting deeper into Ms. Jackson. So we'll be right back. Let's get back to the Stimbs. What you got next for us? The synths, that kind of high-pitched keyboard, just the three-cord thing that goes through the entire song.

It's actually credited not to any individual, but it's credited to Earthtone 3 as a whole. And here it is. That's it. It's a really simple. Records and a bass. But can I say that is some sheer synth perfection. That is some ser. That is some sense.

That's some Depeche Mode. I really like that. Some actually human league, I'd say more than Depeche Mode. Depeche Mode would be a little more intricate. Play it again. Play it again. Let's hear one more time. I'm hearing a lot of human league in that.

Orchestral. Yes. You know what? For the actual, for the tone, you're right. It's OMD. For the sound. For some of you hear, It reminded me of this just because we're talking about it.

By the way, because we have a music, like, softly, as if I pay piano in the dark. Like, I wonder if he was thinking that when he played that. Just because we have a podcast and it's fun to play music. It just reminds me of this.

It's just a chord. Sorry, Mr. Jackson. I'm not meant to make your daughter cry. I apologize. Me and your daughter got this thing going on. You say it's pooped love. We say it's real strong.

Man, the human league. like the potential for the Human League Outcast crossover. If anybody's still doing mashups, first off, you're 20 years too late. But try that. See if it works. So those are your sins. We've now heard all the instruments. And if you'd like to, we can get into the vocals.

There's all of fun. I'd love to get into the vocals. Tell me about these vocals because these lyrics are outstanding and grown up. I was actually thinking it might be a fun way to do this. Is there a vocal in particular? Because there's so many great lines. I'll start with one and then I'll bounce it to you. You pick the next one.

So I'm going to start with the, let's hear the baby's mama's intro thing, because that's one of many iconic moments. You know, like, that just sets the whole thing on. Okay. Here we go. Yeah, this one right here goes out to all the baby's mammas, mammas. Mamas, mammas. Nice.

Who's that in the background? Baby mama's momas. And then there's this woo-bo-bo-do. I know. Go like this. I mean, it makes the song instantly a classic. You know, we were talking about how, you know, technically Andre's first line in any Outcast song that was ever released was, you know,

it's beginning to look a lot like what? Like it immediately grabs you. That's the tone. Yeah. And this one is the same way. It's like this one goes out to all the baby's mamas, mama's mom's mom was like he. Yes, it's almost like in a pre-Tick-Ticac age, he understood that there was a certain brain algorithm that's like, man, you got about 10 seconds to get me.

Yeah, yeah. I saw the DOC talking about working with Snoop. on nothing but a G thing. And he was like, Snoop, you know, you got to say something at the top of this song that's going to immediately draw people in. Yeah. And he was like, and with that advice,

Snoop wrote one, two, three, into the phone. He's like counting. Like everybody knows what's going to come next. But how are you going to reinvent counting? Like good rap songs, they draw him from the very beginning. That's so true.

Yeah, that's such like an innovation of the medium. I mean, like we don't, you don't necessarily have that. Like Beatles songs aren't like, one, two, John, here I come. Like that might have been a good idea. But that might have worked. That might have worked. Right, back in the day.

Paul and John, they let some money on the table. They should have spelled it out. J to the O, to the H to the N. L-E-N-N-O-N-O-N. I mean, like it would have worked. Keep it simple. Just spell your name. All right, so now it's your chair.

What lyric would you let me to isolate next? So many iconic lyrics in this song. I think like the second half of Andre's verse on this song. You know, I think when Erica Badoo said she heard the song, Big Boy's verse, She did not like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She thought it was, like, rude and disrespectful.

A bit agro. And, but she said when she heard Andre's part, she was like, it felt to her anyways, like, truthful. So I think with that in mind, maybe something that plays like the second half of his verse, because there's one line in particular when he says, and yes, I will be present on the first day of school and graduation. Like, that is such a mature line. Like, going back to what we were saying earlier in the episode about hip hop is maturing

at this point. But, like, that line, like, it's so pregnant with, like, a relationship that must still be maintained and yet everybody's compromising. Like, that line kind of blows me away. That's beautiful. Right, right. Thoughts of heat asking what happened to the feeling that her and me had. I pray so much about it. It needs some knee pads.

It happened for a reason one can't be mad. So no this, no, that everything's cool. And yes, I will be present on the first day of school and graduation. I'm sorry, man. Jackson. Can I... Oh, I love it. Let's get technical with Andre's voice.

Because he has such a rich voice just when he's talking. Like, when you hear him in interviews, you're like, oh, yeah, that dude, I guess if there was no such thing as rap, maybe he would have been an announcer. You know what I mean? Like, he's got such a rich voice. And yet, I do hear some effect on that. Yeah, there's a delay. Is that what that is? Is that a delay?

Thoughts of he asking what happened to the feeling that... There's reverb. There's reverb, which gives it that feeling of being in a church. Yes. And then I always think like a big hall. And then at the end of the line, you can hear a little delay tale. Thoughts of he asking what happened to the feeling that her and me had. I pray so much.

Actually, I take that back. That's all Reaver that we're hearing in this mix. And there's something about his lyrics. You know, I think about this a lot because there's some rappers who I like them, but it's hard for even me, lifelong about it. It's hard for me to understand what they say. His enunciation is so clean and clear that I've never had a doubt when I really listen what Andre was saying.

And yet it's still super complicated and syncopated and off the rhythm. I'm reminded of a line on TLC's album, the last song on Crazy, Sexy Cool, I believe it's a song called Something Wicked This Way Comes. And he says, I remember back in a time when the only signs we had with pickets, you know, like just from the start, he's hitting you, you know, and then he goes into, you know,

G. Ang's killing brothers for colors, things that we went for, fashion. Other brothers use it for a reason to be blasting. Like, it's just, it's well-pronounced. And yet, he still doesn't lose his Atlanta accent. I'm going to keep coming back to Atlanta. Like, the Atlanta accent is not the Mississippi accent. It's not the Texas accent. It's not North Kakalak accent. It's a very specific accent. It's a very specific exit that I can fall into. Hey, hey, if I need to fall into that exit, I can fall into that exit. Oh, boy. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, another diallo in the world.

Hey, listen, I grew up there. You know what I'm saying? And now let's listen to the iconic hook with all of its different hook, subhooks. This is the hook with like multiple subhooks within a hook. I'm sorry, Miss Jackson. Ooh, I am for real. Never meant to make your daughter cry.

I apologize a trillion times. I'm sorry, Ms. Jackson. Ooh, I am for real. Never meant to make your daughter. to cry, I apologize a trillion time. Okay, now you have to rank the hooks. What is the top hook within a hook of that hook? Oh, interesting.

Is it the who? I mean, the who is infectious. I think you gotta have it all. I think it all comes together. Because if you take any part of it off, it's almost like OutKass itself. If you take away Big Boy, it's Andre, which is amazing, but it's not OutKat. I don't want to eat the burger. I want the bun. I want the ketchup. I want the pickles. I want it all.

I want all those layers. By the way, speaking of layers, I hear at least two Andre vocals in the mix, like a high and a low. Won't be able to separate them, but it is interesting because I feel like nowadays, almost every rapper has a singing voice. But like this is still, you know, this was probably recorded in 99. Like, with the exception of Lauren Hill, I feel like not every rapper, maybe most deaf. Lauren Hill and most deaf are rapping and singing in equal parts, but this is a new look for

Outcast. Like, you know, he's singing a lot. Well, it's funny you mentioned that because the other part of I wanted to play for you, which is a really fun little moment. I think this is after the first chorus. It's really sweet. And he is, he's kind of doing a little bit of everything, as you say, I'll just play it for you, and then we can talk about it. Got a special thing going on. We got a special kind of thing going on. You say it's public love. We say it's foreground. Arroo! Arroo! That do we feel this? Feel this way forever. You can plan a pretty picnic,

But you can't predict the weather Miss Jackson times out of nine Now if I'm lying fine That's like a beach boy's kind of like That was crazy Right that beautiful You can build a pretty pet You know I think what's cool about that

Is that how many times You've heard that song And I did not hear That other part of it ever Because I was just I was listening to the part that was on the beat You know what I mean? But like The

Can't predict the weather Yeah like that's on a very different part of the beat. That was super cool. Yeah, yeah. He's playing with Counterpoint and he's maybe listening to the Beach Boys. And he's talking.

And he's talking. There's a lot going on there. And it's a way of having multiple different vocal ideas, almost like a Mariah Carey song, right? We were joking on the Mariah Carey episode. We talked about how there's this sort of church-like moment where we have four or five different melodic lines that are playing off of each other.

Yeah. And in the mix, it doesn't feel chaotic. If you just listen to it out of nowhere, it's like, what is this? chaos. But it makes sense because over the course of time in the song, it's built to that moment. Also, it's building, building, building. He was, he was obviously going out with and had a child with Erica Badu. There's something about his falsetto flourishes that sounds like Erica Badu around that time. You know what I mean? Like that's interesting. You know, I need a rim shot, baby.

You know, like, you could, she rubbed off on him. Well, it also reminds me of Sleepy Brown himself who's doing hooks like that in their previous, in their previous songs, right? He's doing his, he's doing as Curtis Mayfield-esque kind of thing. Players ball. There's no way that they could. By the way, shout out to Big Rube, who was a major part of all those early outcast records. He,

yeah, it's interesting because they were obviously in the studio with organized noise and the same way I'm saying, some of that Eric had probably rubbed off on Andre. Some of that organized noise clearly rubbed off on them when it came time for Andre and Big Boy to produce their own songs. Yeah, because when you're in the room with someone creatively and you see them doing it, it is representation matters.

That is like, oh, that is something I can, oh, I can do that. I can try to do that, right, right. But let me also say, because I don't think it's said quite enough, especially in this world of Andre's flute album, that Big Boy is such an important part of Outcast to me. Because, again, it's like the two sides of Atlanta. There's like the very down-to-earth side,

and there's like the aspirational artistic side. And I think that's why Outcast means so much to us. And that's why so many of us really loved Big Boy just as much as if you're a real outcast fan, love Big Boy. And that's why I actually like to see Big Boy. Shout to Daddy Fat Stex. He had a lot of work that he did solo. He did work with artists in the electronic. I mean, like if anybody has ventured out into electronic music, it's actually been Big Boy. He's just left foot. He's done a lot. So I would ask anybody listening to this. And he was one of

the first people. I mean, people forget when Janelle Monet, I first heard about her as a member of the dungeon family. So, you know, like, I feel like he's also been a good steward, and he's done features with artists who were up and coming. And Killer Mike. And Killer Mike is like the second generation, Dungeon Family. I guess future would be the third generation. You know, like, Dungeon Family has had some amazing careers launched out of that click,

and we should never, ever underestimate or underappreciate. Let me ask you, how often should we not do it? Should we never, ever? So we never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever? Not at all. Let's hear that. Ever, ever. On the oak tree, I hope we feel like this forever, forever, forever, forever, ever, forever, never seems

that long until you're grown and notice that the day by day ruler can't be too wrong. Pause it. The other thing that Andre does a lot in his verse is that I really appreciate is he's got a very sort of like wise sort of like sense of like beginnings and endings. Let me explain that. One of my favorite, this might be, this might be my favorite outcast line of all time. It comes from elevators.

He talks about running to that guy in the mall that he hasn't seen a long time. Yeah. You know, but he's standing there, facial expression looking silly and at. And like he talks, he says, the line that he says, sort of like this thing about the day-by-day ruler

can't be too long. Yeah. He talks about when the record gets to, oh, it's not elevators, it's Rosa Parks. When the record gets to skipping and slowing down, I hope you can, still say them brothers had their crown, but until then, uh-huh, what's that fuss?

Like, he's very much talked about there may come a time when there is no outcast or people aren't checking for outcast. He comes back to that often, almost as much as like Tupac talked about dying or getting shot. Like Tupac taught a lot about that. And, and, and Andre taught a lot about there may come a time when there's no more outcast. And I've always been telling us.

He's been saying for a long time. Because we're going to get into this more in a minute. But there's a lot going on in Andre's creative brain. And he is looking to do things that are interesting to him exclusively. That is his life's mission. And of course, he needs to feed his family. Of course, he needs to keep shoes on his feet. He's got ambitions.

He's got an element of him that enjoys fame. But there's also something that drives him, which is just purely exploration and creativity and improvisational creativity at that. And that, to me, is why I'm so inspired, especially by his most recent moves, after giving up the greatest hip-hop act of all time, according to many, and certainly according to the sales of speakerbox and love below,

and go on to do what he wants to do with his days, you know, even though he put success down and he left it there. And everyone wonders why, well, because he's driven by creativity. Listen, I appreciate that. I think that, look, I listened to the flute album over the weekend, a friend of mine, it was like, yo, this album is going to bang in the spa. And I kind of agree. Yeah.

I think he went too. He's not a joke to him. He's like, he gets it. He knows what this is. He's in on it. But listen, I will say this, if you really loved Outcast and you are missing Outcast, and this obviously does nothing to make you not miss Outkast. I mean, like, I give props to, I give props to Leslie Jones who did an extended riff at the Daily Show.

Like, what are you doing? You know, like, I totally get where that comes from, not because we don't appreciate artistic change. It's just that if Outcast is or was what it was for me, and presumably Leslie, just your favorite hip-hop group, there is a part of you that a, that a, a, a, rhymless instrumental flute album, it only sort of exacerbates your, like, desire to, like, hear from him. You know what I mean? I remember 2007, Outcast by that point of being. broken up. And And Andre personally had like an amazing year of features. He's on the Walk It Out remixed with, you know, DJ Unk. He's, um, and throw some D's on it. He's on that remix and crushed it. He's, that was the year that he came out with, uh, that epic other flow he did

about marriage on, um, the international players anthem by UGK. Like 2007, it's like the second outcast broke up. He was like on he, I think that's the year he did his verse on party with Beyonce. You know, like, he was coming with all these amazing first after verse after verse. And there's a part of us that misses that. I don't want to belabor it because, again, I think that we're unified in thinking that like an artist needs to go or an artist needs to go. But you've heard this from me before. In my opinion, Outcast is very much like Daft Punk. Like, they came out with albums

and they defined genres and they defied genres. And then they broke up. And then you just had to just resign yourself to the fact that no, there's not going to be another outcast album. There's not going to be another dad punk album. Oh, one of the members is coming out with an album. And it's all classical music.

Okay. This is the narcissism of fandom though. Like, it's totally narcissism. Totally selfish. Totally selfish. It's totally selfish. And by the way, there are enough outcast albums that we can always go back and revisit those. In fact, I'm going to hear it in a new way. I'm going to suggest to any who has never listened to Southern Playlists at Cadillac Music, you know,

even though there's some lyrics in there that are probably not cool by today's standards, go back and listen to a young Andre and young big boy. And you'll still hear a lot of what you appreciate in later Outcast Records. It's not that these groups Outkast and Daampunk don't leave a musical legacy. It's just that, you know, there is a part of us that would love to see the band get back together and just do one song for us. You know what I mean? Yeah.

All right. So, Dielo, this is the first time you've heard this song this way, broken up into those isolated chunks. How was that experience for you? Did it change your appreciation for the music? Yes. Look, I always knew there was something different sonically happening with Outcast and almost any other group that was out there.

I think somewhere in the back of my brain, even though I didn't understand, you know, music creation back then the way I do now, that there was probably some more live instrumentation. I didn't realize the live instrumentation. Looking back now, you know, 20 years later, more than 20 years later, it does feel like, you know, that was one of the things that made their production special. It makes the text you different.

In a hip-hop song, in a rap song, of this era especially, you know, it changes the nature of the musical bed itself is definitely different. How it was made was different. It's performed. Not only is it performed, but there are no loops or very few loops. The percussion, there are loops. There are loops in the beat, but the rest of it is a human playing through for three minutes, which is significant because it's the sound of a band playing. And there's something amazing that I will defend as much as you will, to the nth degree about sampling,

and what loops do. The feel of a loop, the feel of a loop is its own special thing. The feel of Kraft Fork, Metronomic, precision, daft punk, but also the feeling of a band or performers performing is a special thing too. I think a big part of Outcast is that. I loved Outcast. outcasts, I love the way their music sounded different than anything else, not just on the radio, but almost anything else in hip-hop. So yeah, we support live musicians. And we support drum machines.

And we support sampling. And we support interpolations. We love it all. A lot of ways to skin a cat or to make a song, which is why is skin a cat, that's a strange expression. Please don't skin cats out there. Shout out to not skinning cats. Yeah. So it's been 20 years since Ms. Jackson was released, longer, actually. It's been a little bit longer. Where does it stand for you in the hip-hop pantheon? A quarter century later, look, I personally have a hard time comparing or like coming up with like a top 10 anything because ultimately we're comparing art

and I tell my kids all the time like not everything has to be a freaking TikTok list. What about within the Outkows catalog? But within the Outkaz catalog, look, I love this song. It means a lot to you know, Outkaps fans in the sense that by this point you really know that these guys are maturing because they're coming with deeply personal material

that is not, like you said earlier, it's not bragging, it's not descriptions of street life. No, this is like, hey, this is what's going on with me today. So it's way up there. I mean, your top three? What is your top three? What is your top three? My outcast top three. Man, I'm on the spot.

Okay, here we go. Number one, got to go with Players Ball, that remix that you played earlier. It is absolutely one of my favorite songs of all time. I would say number two. I'm going to say she lives in my lap just because it is a

song that could not have been on Southern Playlists of Cadillac Music. Like to me, that song and all its wonderful, atmospheric goodness. Okay. It's like a truly just an amazing song. Chow to Rosario Dawson on it.

It's just an amazing song. It's just a great song. lives in my lap. It almost sounds like Prince. I love the story about we don't have time to get in today, but after they did the reunion show at Coachella, Prince called Andre to like give him advice and basically rate the show. And I'm like, who gets calls from Prince like that? And then my number one is a very bizarre song, considering that I really love Outcast for their rapping. But it's the spoken word masterpiece,

Spotioti Dobelicious. But to this day, there are so many classic moments in that song from a masterful big boy

line. The post office ain't call you bad because you had cloudy piss. What? Because you failed a drunk test.

That's what he's talking about. And then, you know, Andre's description of a night out that goes drastically wrong when a fight

breaks out. And he says, one dude got his shirt off saying, now who want to with Hollywood coat, which listening to, I always thought he said Hollywood

Cole, which I thought was the most bad nickname of all time, but he says Hollywood Court, which someone reminded me, I was like, once he said Hollywood Court, I was like, oh, we used to call the projects in Atlanta. A lot of times they had names like Court, so there was like Kimberly Court, and Hollywood Court was

a particularly bad one. I want to say it was over near Nisky Lake, which was really nice. Like, that was where some black folks had houses on a lake. Like, I briefly dated a girl over on lived on Nisky Lake and we went out on her boat. But some of the projects that were over there were like really rough and Hollywood

Court was one of them. To me, Spotioti musically, it's been sampled so many times. They've done house remixes of it. But to me like, and I think to finish out this answer, my favorite album, standalone album by Outcasts

is it, I want to say it's a love below in a speakerbox, but it might be Equim and I. Because Equim and I was more than Aetelians, I feel it's a lot of people's favorites. Equim and I was just a... It was masterful. And there's so many good songs on that album.

So, you know, again, I hate comparing art to art. It's not what I do. I think it's better in sports than in the world of art. But yeah, I think Spodioti takes the top spot. And I think Aquamini takes the top album spot. All right, man. Help me in this thing. All right.

Well, I've been luxury. I am luxury. I continue to be luxury. In spite of my illness, I am still producer, DJ and songwriter, luxury. So I am. And I am actor, writer, sometimes DJ, and forever A.T.L.L. In Diallo Riddell. That's right. And this has been one song.

We will see you next time. Peace. Jackson. Boo! Can't not do the woo. No one can't do the woo. No, no. You can't, you can't not woo when it's time to woo.