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Event
ICON: OutKast & The Dungeon Family Featuring DJ Limelight & DJ OhBeOne.
ICON : A DJ Tribute series dedicated to the most prolific artist to do it.
ICON: OutKast & The Dungeon Family
Friday, April 25th (20 Year Anniversary to the release of Outkast first album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik).
@ New Orleans on the Avenue.
543 Indiana Avenue.
Indianapolis, IN. 46202
10PM. $10. 21 & Over.
Featuring the sounds of DJ Limelight & DJ OhBeOne.
Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik is the debut album of American hip hop duo OutKast, released on April 26, 1994, by LaFace Records. After befriending each other in 1992, rappers André 3000 and Big Boi pursued recording music as a duo and worked with production team Organized Noize, which led to their signing to LaFace. The album was produced by the team and recorded at the Dungeon, D.A.R.P. Studios, Purple Dragon, Bosstown, and Doppler Studios in Atlanta.
A Southern hip hop album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik features live instrumentation in its hip hop production and musical elements from funk and soul genres. Wanting to make a statement about urban life as an African American in the South, OutKast wrote and recorded the album as teenagers and addressed coming of age topics with the album's songs. They also incorporated repetitive hooks and Southern slang in their lyrics.
The album peaked at number 20 on the Billboard 200, on which it charted for 26 weeks, and was eventually certified platinum in the United States. It was promoted with three singles, including "Player's Ball", which helped create buzz for the album. Upon its release, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik received positive reviews from music critics and helped distinguish Southern hip hop as a credible hip hop scene, amid East Coast and West Coast hip hop's market dominance. The album has since been viewed by writers as an important release in both hip hop and Atlanta's music scene.
André 3000 and Big Boi met in 1992 at the Lenox Square shopping mall when they were both 16 years old.[1] The two lived in the East Point section of Atlanta and attended Tri-Cities High School.[1] During school, they participated in rap battles in the cafeteria.[1] André 3000 dropped out of high school at age 17 and worked a series of jobs before he and Big Boi formed a group called 2 Shades Deep;[2] he returned to obtain his GED at a night school following the release of Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik.[3] They briefly dabbled in street-hustling to save up for recording money.[4]
The duo also spent time at their friend Rico Wade's basement recording studio, known as the Dungeon,[5] with Wade's production team Organized Noize and future members of hip hop group Goodie Mob.[1][6] OutKast recorded demos at the studio,[6] and Organized Noize member Ray Murray helped Big Boi, whose strength lay in songwriting, develop his rapping skills.[3] After several local productions, the team was hired by LaFace Records to produce remixes to songs from TLC's 1992 album Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip.[6] The team had André 3000 and Big Boi rap over them, which led to a record deal from LaFace for both Organized Noize and OutKast.[6] The commercial success of Arrested Development's 1992 alternative hip hop single "Tennessee" also encouraged LaFace to sign OutKast,[7] the label's first hip hop act.[8]
Recording
Organized Noize incorporated the Roland TR-808 in the album's production.[9]
After receiving a $15,000 advance from LaFace in 1993, OutKast started recording the album at the Dungeon.[10] The studio featured mostly secondhand recording equipment.[5] Recording sessions also took place at Bosstown, Dallas Austin's D.A.R.P. Studios,[11] Doppler Studios, and Purple Dragon in Atlanta.[12] Located in midtown Atlanta, Bosstown developed a sentimental value for OutKast, who later bought the studio in 1999 and renamed it "Stankonia" after their fourth studio album.[11] Throughout the album's recording, the duo refined their artistry and drew on ideas from funk, contemporary R&B, and soul music.[13] André 3000 also smoked marijuana during the sessions.[14] They recorded over 30 songs for the album.[13]
Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik was produced entirely by Organized Noize, which was made up of Rico Wade, Ray Murray, and Sleepy Brown.[12] Production team Organized Noize utilized live instrumentation on the album, emphasizing musical instruments, including bass, keyboards, guitar,[15] and organ,[16] over conventional hip hop techniques such as DJing and sampling.[17] They viewed that the feel of live instruments made the music sound more authentic and immediate.[15] With their production, the team sought an organic, celebratory, "down-home" vibe, as Brown later recalled, "We wanted Atlanta brothers to be proud of where they were from".[18] Brown also sung vocals for several tracks.[12]
Along with Organized Noize, other members of the Dungeon Family worked on the album,[18] including Goodie Mob, Mr. DJ, Debra Killings, and Society of Soul.[12] The album was mixed at Sound on Sound in New York City, Bosstown, D.A.R.P. Studios, Tree Sound, and Studio LaCoCo in Atlanta.[12]
Music and lyrics
"Myintrotoletuknow"
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The opening song discusses street-hustling and incorporates guitar.[12][19]
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A Southern hip hop album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik incorporates analog elements such as Southern-styled guitar licks, languid soul melodies, and mellow 1970s funk grooves.[20][21] It also features digital hip hop production elements such as programmed snare beats, booty bass elements,[20] including Roland TR-808 clave rhythms,[9] and old school hip hop elements, including E-mu SP-1200-styled drums and turntable scratches.[22] Music writers characterize the album's music and beats as "clanky" and "mechanical".[20][23] Roni Sarig of Rolling Stone comments that the music shows "clear debts to East Coast bohos like the Native Tongues and a West Coast level of attention to live instruments and smooth, irresistible melodies".[17] In Oliver Wang's Classic Material, music writer Tony Green delineates the album's release "at the tail end of a second hip-hop 'golden age,' a two-year period (199394) that spawned Wu-Tang's Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle, De La Soul's Buhloone Mindstate, Nas's Illmatic, and A Tribe Called Quest's Midnight Marauders", and comments that "like many albums released during that period, Southernplayalistic alluded to its roots ... while clearing the way for a new direction that used the peach cobbler soul funk of the Organized Noize production crew as a starting point."[22]
With the album, OutKast wanted to make a statement about urban life as an African American in the South, particularly Atlanta.[15] Written when they were teenagers, much of the album addresses coming of age topics,[17][23] and has themes of self-empowerment and reflections on life in the New South.[24] Encyclopedia of Popular Music editor Colin Larkin writes that the album "compris[es] tales of the streets of their local East Point and Decatur neighbourhoods".[25] The album's segue tracks illustrate Southern life.[26] The lyrics incorporate tongue-twisters, triplet rhyme schemes,[22] repetitive vocal hooks, Southern slang, such as the recurring phrase "ain't no thang but a chicken wing" repeated throughout "Ain't No Thang".[17][20] The duo also intersperse their lyrics with references to classic cars, marijuana use, pimps,[18] and players,[23] which Big Boi defines as "somebody who can take care of they business in the game, the game of life".[27] His flow is frenetic and has a rapid delivery, while André 3000 raps in a more relaxed cadence, with staccato rhymes, and occasionally sings on the album. Writer Martin C. Strong views that both rappers' "lyrical panache" on the album has an "ebb and flow" similar to Kool Keith and Del the Funky Homosapien.
The song "Call of da Wild" discusses the temptation to drop out of school, while "Git Up, Git Out" encourages teenagers to follow their passions, be productive, and stop using drugs. The latter is an intertextual track that mixes themes of consciousness and political awareness with images of violence, sex, drugs, and gangsta culture.[8] It features guest rapper Cee Lo Green exploring perspectives of both man child and maternal figure. "Funky Ride" has no rappers and is instead sung by R&B group Society of Soul, a side project of Organized Noize. It has an extended guitar solo and musical similarities to Funkadelic and Bootsy Collins. "Crumblin' Erb" explores themes of hedonism and addresses black-on-black violence and the negative effect it has on African-American culture: "There's only so much time left in this crazy world / I'm just crumblin' erb / Niggas killin' niggas, they don't understand (it's the master plan), I'm just crumblin' erb".
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LocationNew Orleans On The Avenue (View)
543 Indiana Avenue
Indianapolis, IN 46203
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 21 |
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
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