RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. Manufactured for Vinyl Me, Please by Sony Music Entertainment, 25 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10010-8601. SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT’S CERTIFIED TO RELEASE OUTKAST’S AQUEMINI 25 TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION& SPEAKERBOXXX/THE LOVE BELOW 20 TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION ON LIMITED VINYL A2 Published by Gnat Booty/Chrysalis Music, Inc./Dungeon Ratz Music, Inc. (ASCAP)/Goodie Mob/Chrysalis Music (BMI)

A6 Published by Gnat Booty/Chrysalis Music, Inc./Dungeon Ratz Music, Inc./Anyiah's Music/J-Sweet Music/Cory Andrew Publishing Designee (ASCAP)

Release

B3 Published by Gnat Booty/Chrysalis Music, Inc./Dungeon Ratz Music, Inc./Sincerely Success (ASCAP)/Tef Noize Publishing (BMI) D3 Published by Gnat Booty/Chrysalis Music, Inc./Dungeon Ratz Music, Inc. (ASCAP)/Goodie Mob/Chrysalis Music, Inc. (BMI) It's funny, layered and (gasp) open minded. One of my favorite things about Outkast is their ability and willingness to approach subjects that are simply "not cool" and in doing so they make such a powerful argument that pop culture is forced to rethink their ill advised preconceptions. I mean let's face it, in the year 2000 Andre becomes a national sex icon and if this album is any evidence of his intentions (ensuring that the sexin' is dope for everyone involved [and shaming those selfish bastards who couldn't be bothered otherwise]) then this is more than a hot pop record. It's aimed directly at pop culture en masse and fires away with bullets of wisdom, kindness and bravado. This is the moment that Outkast begins to prove themselves as great songwriters not just club shakers. Do remember, this is André and Big Boi six years and three albums into their music careers. At 25 years old, the former high school classmates-turned-rap partners were no longer the babyface pupils discovered, groomed, and developed in the early 1990s by Atlanta production trio Organized Noize. The pair entered the year 2000 no longer coming-of-age, but two fully grown men with acclaim from critics, the support of radio, visibility on television, two Platinum albums, and a Grammy nomination for “Rosa Parks,” the lead single off Aquemini. All accomplished without minimizing their Southern individuality in a hip-hop still dominated by rappers from the East and West coasts. C1 Published by Organized Noize Music/Goodie Mob Music/Chrysalis/Lil' Bree Music (BMI)/Gnat Booty/Chrysalis Music, Inc./Slic Flo Music (ASCAP)

In interviews at the time, OutKast made sure to mention that they weren’t really listening to rap music — that rap music wasn’t inspiring them. Instead, they were off on their own separate musical visual quests. Big Boi talked about Kate Bush. André talked about Photek. There was certainly a sense of competition with the rest of the rap landscape — Stankonia, after all, was not the duo’s first time sharing a release date with Jay-Z — but there was a remove, a sense of separation, both from the rest of rap music and even from each other. The duality at the heart of OutKast, the yin-and-yang combination of Big Boi and André’s respective styles and outlooks, was always one of the duo’s most powerful advantages. But making Stankonia, Big Boi and André were further-removed from one another than they’d ever been. Outkast has also just uncovered a brand new animated music video for “SpottieOttieDopaliscious.” Watch HERE. An epic 25 years in the making, the visual unfolds as a feast of seventies-inspired funk style, stoned psychedelic space meandering, and inimitable Afrofuturism directed by OK Motion Club. The clip follows its main character through an otherworldly nightlife “fever dream” where even the smallest move makes a big difference on the board… B5. Published by Gnat Booty/Chysalis Music, Inc./Dungeon Ratz Music, Inc./Hits From Da Bong Music, adm. BMG Songs Inc./Dez Only 1 (ASCAP) A6. Published by Gnat Booty/Chysalis Music, Inc./Dungeon Ratz Music, Inc./Aniyah's Music/J-Sweet Music/Cory Andrew Publishing Designee (ASCAP) Americans, as natural-born dreamers, have an innate desire to witness and encounter unordinary and unexplainable feats. We thirst for those who can inspire magic. Any kind of remarkable triumph will be remembered for days, months, years, maybe even decades in the land of the free. But do something supernatural, and you’ll become a myth, a folklore, a deity that lives in the same chamber of American consciousness as other reality defiers.

Catalog

Their debut was an album bursting with the funk descended from the Isley Brothers, Isaac Hayes, and Curtis Mayfield in a way that was smoother than Dr. Dre’s G-funk stylings, more organic than Puff Daddy’s wholesale sampling of ’80s R&B, and more fluid and adventurous than hometown icon Jermaine Dupri’s sleek soul and pop arrangements. It was the music of Southern hip-hop, the “country rap tunes” pioneered by the late Pimp C, outfitted to a weary worldview that was cautious and specific about local dealings and paranoid about the greater world, but ultimately hopeful on universal levels—or, at least as hopeful as “Crumblin’ Erb” while “niggas killin’ niggas” can be. mix engineer 1, 6, 8, 14, 17, 20, 22, 24, recording engineer 1, 2, 4-6, 8, 10-12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20-22, 24 {3, 7, 9, 13, 16, 19, 23} Stankonia was an actual place, though it wasn’t seven light years away from the “B.O.B.” video shoot. After the success of their third album Aquemini, OutKast moved out of the Dungeon. They bought their own studio, the place that had formerly been known as Bobby Brown’s Bosstown, and they spent a year experimenting and tinkering and honing and perfecting, coming up with a sound that was at least a couple light years removed from what everyone else in rap was doing. Rap music had effectively colonized the pop mainstream years before Stankonia arrived, but OutKast saw something else happening — the pop mainstream colonizing rap music. “They’re real comfortable out there right now,” Big Boi told SPIN. “Nobody’s hungry anymore.” OutKast were still hungry.

With the release of Stankonia, OutKast, despite their ordinary appearance on the cover, were no longer ordinary. They transcended to a superhero notoriety that went beyond hip-hop even though rap was still their medium. I can remember how it felt to grow up right outside of Atlanta, just 20 minute south of the major city, and feel how big they were getting. Their songs were everywhere; coming out of every kind of car, nodding the head of every kind of driver. No ceiling was high enough to contain them. D5. Published by Gnat Booty/Chysalis Music, Inc./Dungeon Ratz Music, Inc. (ASCAP)/Organized Noize Music/Death To The Fakers (BMI) Stankonia, more so than any of their previous albums, goes further to dig beneath surface-level hip-hop clichés about love and sex, womenhood and manhood. This is largely due to life experiences. To press play is to hear from two fathers providing for their families using an artform that’s still misunderstood. Coming into this new decade, soon to be a new millennium, their perspectives are critical of everything, and everyone. The dangers of being flossing big spenders, shortsighted hip-hop critics, teen pregnancy, American politics, the changing idealism around sex and pleasure―there’s no topic off the table. Big Boi explains where this passion to discuss worldly issues comes from in the groups Spin Magazine 2001 cover story that commemorated Stankonia’s one year anniversary:

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A5 Recorded at Stankonia Recording, Atlanta, GA. Mixed for NHP Sound at Stankonia Recording, Atlanta, GA D3. Published by Gnat Booty/Chysalis Music, Inc./Dungeon Ratz Music, Inc. (ASCAP)/Goodie Mob/Chrysalis Music, Inc. (BMI) More ambitious and hook driven then their debut album, 2000's Stankonia is a trippy sort of technopsychedelic funk. Blending elements of hip-hop, alternative rap, southern rap and dirty south music with electronica and psychedelia earned the duo critical acclaim and broad audience appeal. Although “B.O.B.” reintroduced OutKast as a group that burned with high voltage urgency, what’s equally impressive is Stankonia’s endurance as an album. The CD version is filled to capacity, and not a second is wasted. Big Boi’s wordy, robust style does not run out of steam. His potent verses are acrobatic performances; from the rapid-fire, Killer Mike and J-Smooth featured “Snappin’ & Trappin’” to the oil sleek “So Fresh, So Clean,” Big doesn’t miss a chance to rhyme like a hungry newcomer. André matches this dirty south tenacity at every turn. Regardless of if he’s rapping, singing, or a combination of both, it’s done with striking gusto.

A2. Published by Gnat Booty/Chysalis Music, Inc./Dungeon Ratz Music, Inc. (ASCAP)/Goodie Mob/Chrysalis Music(BMI) B5 Published by Gnat Booty/Chrysalis Music, Inc./Dungeon Ratz Music, Inc./Hits From Da Bong Music, adm. BMG Songs Inc./Dez Only 1 (ASCAP)I remember exactly where I was the first time “B.O.B.” hit. It’s not the kind of thing you forget. I remember everything about it — the tingly music-box intro, the whispered count-off, the sudden adrenaline-jamming surge of booming bass and rampaging drums and needling dubbed-out electric guitars, the way that adrenaline surge didn’t let up over the next five minutes. I remember all those sounds and ideas pinging around in my head as I walked across that parking lot. I remember the sunlight reflecting off of the windshields of the cars around me, the faces of the people walking past, the air suddenly tasting a whole lot more vivid in my lungs. It’s all tattooed in there. It’s never leaving. I won’t let it leave.