Speaker 1: Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential and sometimes controversialist.
Speaker 2: I'm Britney Spanos.
Speaker 3: And I'm Rob Sheffield and we're here to shed light
Speaker 3: on the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes
Speaker 3: them so great. This week we're talking about a gray
Speaker 3: one m Miss Jackson by Outcast.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is one of four Outcast songs that made the list.
Speaker 1: Miss Jackson is at number one forty five, and then
Speaker 1: we have hey Ya in the top ten at number ten,
Speaker 1: Bob Bombs over Bagdad at number thirty nine, and of
Speaker 1: course their UGK collaboration International Player's Anthem is at number
Speaker 1: ninety one.
Speaker 2: I love Miss Jackson.
Speaker 1: I think is probably the first Outcast song I'd ever heard,
Speaker 1: but it's I'm so excited to talk about today.
Speaker 3: That's so amazing. It's such a beautiful song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was on their two thousand albums Sanconia,
Speaker 1: and it was the second single after Bob and Bob
Speaker 1: was ended up being you know, sort of kind of
Speaker 1: not the biggest hit to debut from the album. It
Speaker 1: was also banned from rap radio and it just you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't wasn't really like the launching point that their
Speaker 1: label intended probably for the album, but of course Miss
Speaker 1: Jackson ended up becoming this like massive breakout hit for
Speaker 1: Outcast and just like a giant moment for them.
Speaker 3: Absolutely really the opposite of Moms for Baghdad, just in
Speaker 3: terms of the sound and approach.
Speaker 1: And this was a song that ended up hitting number
Speaker 1: one and it was It won the Grammy for Best
Speaker 1: Rap Performance by a Duo or a Group. And it's
Speaker 1: also a very personal song for the band. This is
Speaker 1: about Andrea's relationship with Eric Abadou, which it had ended
Speaker 1: prior to the album being released, which I kind of
Speaker 1: loved this like little homage to his relationship with her
Speaker 1: and her mom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very unusual to have a song to her mom
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and very kind of like great sort of dedication
Speaker 1: to you know, the idea of breaking someone's daughter's heart
Speaker 1: and kind of like how you deal with that, and
Speaker 1: this like apology to both of them at the same time,
Speaker 1: and it just comes out so well.
Speaker 3: This song is just very different from anything anybody was
Speaker 3: doing at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even for Outcasts it ended up being you know,
Speaker 1: this was kind of a moment for both of them
Speaker 1: where they were sort of shifting their sound a little bit.
Speaker 1: I think even for Andrea specifically, like this was kind
Speaker 1: of the beginning of him doing more search like melodic singing,
Speaker 1: sing rapping instead of just like straightforward rapping on every
Speaker 1: Outcast song. Of course, we would see a lot more
Speaker 1: kind of of that sort of diversity of his own
Speaker 1: performance style on speaker Box, Love Below and Idlewild, but
Speaker 1: this was sort of that beginning for him of like
Speaker 1: really honing in on that.
Speaker 3: Something like Bombs over Baghdad. I mean, it was so
Speaker 3: avant garde, it was so challenging, it was so hard,
Speaker 3: Miss Jackson. It just comes straight from the heart. Yeah,
Speaker 3: very personal story, very unusual kind of thing for to
Speaker 3: be singing about real life relationship that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Andrea talked about how the song kind of
Speaker 1: started out as this acoustic guitar song and ended up
Speaker 1: switching it because he felt like it was just not
Speaker 1: really what Outcast was doing or kind of what people
Speaker 1: would want to hear from them, So ended up switching
Speaker 1: the song. And they have this like really great sample
Speaker 1: of the Brothers Johnson's version of Strawberry Letter twenty three
Speaker 1: and kind of have this like cool sort of like
Speaker 1: reverse flip of the of the sample and the song
Speaker 1: on it, which is like that kind of I you know,
Speaker 1: like reverse kind of flip under it. I've always really
Speaker 1: really loved the way that sounded under under the vocals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a familiar seventies sound with very outcast twist on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Eric has talked a little bit about the song and
Speaker 1: about sort of like her own reaction to it, and
Speaker 1: I really love that. She kind of talked about how
Speaker 1: it was sort of like a sore spot for her
Speaker 1: at first, just because especially with Big Boys verse, she
Speaker 1: kind of liked that part was sort of it was
Speaker 1: a little tougher because they had broken up. They you know,
Speaker 1: heard Andre Shrison that they had had over the course
Speaker 1: of their relationship, and she said it hit kind of
Speaker 1: a sore spot. I didn't want to hear that, especially
Speaker 1: when I heard Big Boys verse. When I heard Andre's verse,
Speaker 1: I felt very good because his verse was really really inspiring.
Speaker 1: He just said how he felt and it was his
Speaker 1: honest feelings, and I always respected that and listened to
Speaker 1: what he felt and appreciated it. And she said that
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, I talked about how her mom Loves
Speaker 1: a song and like a Miss Jackson license played and
Speaker 1: you know, a mug and an ink pen and just
Speaker 1: kind of course embraced kind of being the titular Miss
Speaker 1: Jackson in the song.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and Eric's legend had really grown so much over
Speaker 3: the past few years. It was wild that you could
Speaker 3: hear the song as most people did, not knowing who
Speaker 3: it was about a specific person, but for somebody as
Speaker 3: legendary as Erica, it was just really enhanced knowing her
Speaker 3: work and how powerful that is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you remember of like hearing Outcasts for
Speaker 1: the first time or kind of hearing kind of this
Speaker 1: band that was just like such like an explosive moment
Speaker 1: in hip hop and in pop music when they kind
Speaker 1: of came on the scene and started to blow up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hearing Outcasts for the first time was a total transformation.
Speaker 3: It was the Equimini era. Yeah, I was watching MTV.
Speaker 3: I saw the video for Rows of Parks and that
Speaker 3: was the first time I ever heard of Outcast and
Speaker 3: Rose of Parks completely blew my mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all the.
Speaker 3: Innovation in that song, all the humor in that song,
Speaker 3: all the brilliance in that song. And I went out
Speaker 3: and got in the car and drove to the mall.
Speaker 3: It was right before closing time so I could buy
Speaker 3: that CD. So I took it home and just listened
Speaker 3: to a Quemini all night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think it was like Miss Jackson
Speaker 1: was the first one that I'd heard, especially because that
Speaker 1: video was such like a heavy rotation and TV video
Speaker 1: of course, you know, with all the kind of animals
Speaker 1: bobbing their heads and just sort of, you know, ingrained
Speaker 1: in my own kind of consciousness type of video. But
Speaker 1: obviously you know speaker Box Love below coming out when
Speaker 1: it did, and sort of being in middle school and
Speaker 1: all those songs, Like, I mean, Outcast ended up becoming
Speaker 1: just like one of the most important and biggest acts
Speaker 1: of that time for I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: listening to pop music to rap music at that time.
Speaker 3: It was so huge and so innovative. That was absolutely incredible,
Speaker 3: their band doing things on every level that was unpredictable. Nonetheless,
Speaker 3: it's so much pop appeal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, even coming after Ms Jackson and Bombs
Speaker 1: of Her Baghdad and Rosa Parks like was kind of
Speaker 1: the later music that Outcast released. Was that like a
Speaker 1: very big shock or was it something where you were
Speaker 1: just kind of like anticipating to be shocked by whatever
Speaker 1: outcast was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the way they would evolve from album
Speaker 3: to album and after a Qumini a Qumini was just
Speaker 3: so mind blowing, and it seemed like both of their personalities,
Speaker 3: their artistic personalities were so pronounced at that point, and
Speaker 3: their originality was so pronounced at that point. And then
Speaker 3: hearing them move on to Stanconia, which is such a
Speaker 3: diverse album, such a radical album in so many ways. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and as so many different kinds of songs on it,
Speaker 3: Miss Jackson really stood out though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like the first time I'd listened to
Speaker 1: a full album ended up being Speakerbox Love Below, and
Speaker 1: like then going back and listening to their previous albums
Speaker 1: just feeling like not really knowing what to anticipate, you know,
Speaker 1: everything they're doing, and like everything they had been already
Speaker 1: sort of establishing as their career and as their their sound,
Speaker 1: Like it was just so many things at once and
Speaker 1: still felt like so uniquely outcasts in the way that
Speaker 1: they expressed themselves their own flows, like they had such
Speaker 1: distinct identities both Big Boy and Andre as their own
Speaker 1: performers and it just kind of always translated really well
Speaker 1: over no matter what genre they would do or kind
Speaker 1: of what sound they would want to like evoke in
Speaker 1: their songs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they could do any genre, and that there were
Speaker 3: pop songs that were mostly andre inflected and then Big
Speaker 3: Boys more hardcore sound that was there, and their sound
Speaker 3: from the beginning, Andre had that really pronounced poetic streak, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that was there on Quemini. That was there, going
Speaker 3: back to the earlier stuff, but it was really incredible
Speaker 3: how they would evolve album to album and they would
Speaker 3: get more extreme, big Boy would get more Big Boy,
Speaker 3: Andrea would get more andre Intel. An album like speaker
Speaker 3: Box Love Blow is really split between their personalities in
Speaker 3: a way that Quemini already was. The Quemini is their
Speaker 3: astro signs the Aquarius and the Gemini Speaker Box Love below,
Speaker 3: it's gotten so extreme how different their approaches are.
Speaker 1: I always just really really love that the way they
Speaker 1: play off each other, with andre Bean sort of this
Speaker 1: like lover boy and like almost kind of coming off
Speaker 1: this like very sort of not not always but typically
Speaker 1: pretty romantic sort of view of the world, and kind
Speaker 1: of the way that even just on mis Jackson of course,
Speaker 1: just like his sort of dedication and like this like
Speaker 1: tenderness that he has towards his partner and his partner's mother,
Speaker 1: and then Big Boy kind of being much more of
Speaker 1: the player, like a little bit of like, you know,
Speaker 1: just a little bit of the fuck boy character and
Speaker 1: opposition to Andrea.
Speaker 2: I always love the way they played against that.
Speaker 3: Well, and in such a personal song. For Andre to
Speaker 3: drop that verse, it was wild how Big Boy gets
Speaker 3: so pronounced in his personality in this song drop it
Speaker 3: into his song. That's very personal for Andre.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you had mentioned earlier the idea that people
Speaker 1: didn't really know about it, being like Erica a bad
Speaker 1: inspiration kind of what was the level of like, like,
Speaker 1: who were Andre and Erica? I guess as a couple.
Speaker 1: Were they very public or were they kind of like
Speaker 1: I feel like there's so much of that lore and
Speaker 1: people sort of like having this romanticized kind of version
Speaker 1: of this couple that existed twenty years ago. But at
Speaker 1: the time, did people know a lot about their relationship?
Speaker 1: Were they very private?
Speaker 2: What was that? Like?
Speaker 3: They were very private? Andre and Erica both had their
Speaker 3: own legends, and Erica was so such a poet, she
Speaker 3: was so inflected with that progressive R and B that
Speaker 3: she perfected in the nineties, so her legend was already secure.
Speaker 3: It didn't overlap that much with the kind of stuff
Speaker 3: that Outcast was doing. And definitely it was more Andre
Speaker 3: than Big Boy, Yeah, that sort of soul aquarian perspective.
Speaker 3: But Erica was an artist who evolved album to album
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's been so like fun to kind of
Speaker 1: see over the years, especially they went on hiatus in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, and they unity in twenty fourteen
Speaker 1: for a string of festival dates, which was great to
Speaker 1: kind of catch them at that point and be able
Speaker 1: to finally see them live.
Speaker 2: But you know, they've.
Speaker 1: Had such appropriately divergent career of hats since two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven.
Speaker 2: Of course, most recently, Andrea.
Speaker 1: Released an album that's entirely flute compositions, which is I
Speaker 1: don't know if anyone s could have expected anything else
Speaker 1: from Andre right now.
Speaker 3: It's so hardcore. I love that, And with people waiting
Speaker 3: so long for new music from Andrea, yeah, and it
Speaker 3: turns out to be the flute, and people listened to
Speaker 3: the flute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have I know a lot of people who
Speaker 1: went that he just did a concert and that was
Speaker 1: kind of a big pilgrimage for a lot of people
Speaker 1: to go to the show and just see Andre play
Speaker 1: the flute. Big Boy, of course, has released several solo albums.
Speaker 1: He's done a lot of collaborations and production work with
Speaker 1: other people, and he's very instrumental in Ghannamne's career and
Speaker 1: you know, working with a lot of younger artists. And
Speaker 1: also has his owls that you know, I'm a very
Speaker 1: big fan of Big Boys three owls that he has
Speaker 1: at the Stanconia Recording Studio and and Ben building. But
Speaker 1: he has three great owls that I'm obsessed with that
Speaker 1: he posts a lot about on Instagram and allegedly worked
Speaker 1: at a song with Kate Bush as yet to be released,
Speaker 1: but that he talked about a few years ago that
Speaker 1: I'm very much looking forward to.
Speaker 3: I cannot wait for that collaboration and the way their
Speaker 3: sensibilities overlapped. But it's about their careers since then have
Speaker 3: gotten so different. They've gone to opposite extremes. But the owls, well,
Speaker 3: the flute is kind of the owls.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Instruments, Yeah, I think that it definitely makes sense, Like
Speaker 1: you know, that's kind of the unifying part of Outcast
Speaker 1: right is like a little bit of the flute owl
Speaker 1: kind of dynamic that they have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for artists like them to have their own careers
Speaker 3: after being together for so long, but there's still those
Speaker 3: sort of there's still those personalities that they were in Aquimina.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite track or several tracks.
Speaker 3: By Outcast well Rosa Parks, Yeah, kind of goes back.
Speaker 3: That's the shock of the new Yeah, bombs over bag
Speaker 3: Dad was bigger for me personally than Miss but Miss
Speaker 3: Jackson is equally radical. Yeah, they're both Bob and Miss
Speaker 3: Jackson are both really radical songs and that they're unlike
Speaker 3: anything else that was going on at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, mine is Roses. I'm a big speaker Box
Speaker 1: Love Below fan. That album was I think released at
Speaker 1: the exact right time for me, where it was like
Speaker 1: hay On Roses were like the first two songs I'd
Speaker 1: ever bought on iTunes, you know, this was like finally
Speaker 1: had like my own way of buying music, and it
Speaker 1: was that song I always really loved just kind of
Speaker 1: how the drama of it, the weirdness of it, the
Speaker 1: theatricality of that in the video, like before I entered
Speaker 1: my full theater kid era. I feel like that was
Speaker 1: a good precursor to what was going to come for
Speaker 1: me in a few years.
Speaker 3: That's an amazing song. It was just very funny to
Speaker 3: hear on the radio. Sometimes you know, the word poopoo
Speaker 3: would get ansored and sometimes it wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I think it was also probably the eleven year old
Speaker 1: tensive humor of hearing out Cass poopoo on the radio and.
Speaker 3: Definitely the first time it had been done hit that.
Speaker 2: Mass hit and who else could have a hit other
Speaker 2: than a Cast with that?
Speaker 3: No, but it kind of it typifies their originality and
Speaker 3: as you said, the theatricality is so important in that song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, what is it about like Outcast,
Speaker 1: especially this era of Outcast that has had such an
Speaker 1: impact on music or pop culture in your mind, Like,
Speaker 1: what kind of is that legacy of miss Jackson and
Speaker 1: this particular moment for Outcast.
Speaker 3: For such a personal hip hop song, and it's at
Speaker 3: a time when it was very different from the kind
Speaker 3: of song that it was autobiographical. But like you said,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of tenderness in the song, the emotions
Speaker 3: that he expresses are very introspective and very delicate. Ye,
Speaker 3: He's talking about personal weaknesses, personal failures. He's talking about
Speaker 3: a relationship that, as we were saying, was very private
Speaker 3: at the time, and talking about the end of it
Speaker 3: but also facing the responsibilities that came with it. So
Speaker 3: it's about their past, it's about their future, but that
Speaker 3: it's such a personal song just really different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, even just in the way that the
Speaker 1: Beak kind of does that sort of rewind kind of
Speaker 1: record scratch thing, Like there is so much of that
Speaker 1: kind of like evoking of that nostalgia for relationship, that sadness,
Speaker 1: that kind of like just general kind of energy that
Speaker 1: especially Andre is bringing to that story about you know,
Speaker 1: of him and Erica and this relationship with her and
Speaker 1: her mom. But yeah, I mean, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: just again them sort of playing with these two different
Speaker 1: sides of like how to approach a very like delicate
Speaker 1: type of relationship with.
Speaker 2: Your partner's parent is very kind.
Speaker 1: Of that unique outcast humor and kind of weirdness that
Speaker 1: they bring to everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are not enough songs about dealing with the
Speaker 3: partner's parent. Yeah, and it's a topic that had not
Speaker 3: been explored on this level. Definitely not in the song
Speaker 3: this great. Yeah, but for him to get so introspective
Speaker 3: and confessional about real life and that real relationship at
Speaker 3: that time was really it was really innovative for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Outcast breaking up was not a surprise. Yeah, everybody knew
Speaker 3: it was come. And they've been drifting apart artistically really,
Speaker 3: even Speaker Box Love Below, where it's basically two separate albums. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but even on Stanconia and even in Miss Jackson, that
Speaker 3: divide is.
Speaker 1: There, Yeah, definitely it. You know, there is so much
Speaker 1: of them really wanting to establish who they are as
Speaker 1: artists and be bigger than just the group, which is
Speaker 1: you know, it can be such a trap for anyone
Speaker 1: to be in a duo or in any type of group,
Speaker 1: and so it's very clear that they want to establish
Speaker 1: early on that they have individual identities that are outside
Speaker 1: of Outcast and that at some point they will be
Speaker 1: exploring those identities because they are such disparate artists, you know,
Speaker 1: there is so much of that chemistry that they have
Speaker 1: is because they're so different, and that makes it work
Speaker 1: so well, is that they have you know, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of things that bond them musically, and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of creatively, but their personality is their own delivery,
Speaker 1: is the own way that they approach things is very
Speaker 1: clearly different from the beginning. And again that's that's a
Speaker 1: lot of the appeal of how Cast works is that
Speaker 1: they find this like really miraculous and cool way of
Speaker 1: making that feel so seamless and kind of play off
Speaker 1: of each other in a really fun way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they coexisted for so long. Did you see their
Speaker 3: amazing Saturday Night Live performance around the time that Stankonia
Speaker 3: came out.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think I did.
Speaker 3: They did an absolutely iconic Saturday Night Live and it
Speaker 3: was bombs over Baghdad and it was seeing them bring
Speaker 3: that sort of that flare to the presentation of it
Speaker 3: just as a live presentation, Yeah, it was something totally different.
Speaker 3: It was definitely one of the most iconic Saturday Night
Speaker 3: Live appearances ever. The song sounded like nothing that anybody
Speaker 3: had ever heard, but just as a live thing, it
Speaker 3: was such a full show. There were so many people
Speaker 3: who are making it a full on presentation. Yea, it
Speaker 3: seems like a very different song to do live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And also, like while we've been talking, I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about other sort of especially with this season of
Speaker 1: the podcast, and like other episodes we've talked, I feel
Speaker 1: like we've talked about we've brought up Outcast a lot,
Speaker 1: and I feel like, even for the artists that we
Speaker 1: both kind of like talk about a lot, like, I
Speaker 1: feel like Outcast has come up a bunch, like and
Speaker 1: the you know, when we talked about Kate Bush, when
Speaker 1: we talked about Beyonce, and we talked about of course
Speaker 1: the International Player's Anthem, where we had like the other
Speaker 1: another Outcast song, Like, I feel like they've ended up
Speaker 1: sort of organically coming up a lot, And it's so
Speaker 1: fascinating how much Outcast feels like kind of like the
Speaker 1: center of the of the pop universe in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. And it feels like there there's such a
Speaker 1: long sort of tale to their musical legacy and to
Speaker 1: their musical influence. But I also cannot think of a
Speaker 1: single act that sounds like Outcasts since since.
Speaker 3: Them absolutely very different dynamic for a duo, and even
Speaker 3: though they've been so influential, you do hear them everywhere.
Speaker 3: They kind of embody pop music because they had such
Speaker 3: diverse tastes and because they were willing to try so
Speaker 3: many different things.
Speaker 1: I think, especially within the group. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: Big Boy was already the person that he knew he
Speaker 1: wanted to be as like a performer as a rapper,
Speaker 1: and like we've you know, the big Boy character and
Speaker 1: the big Boy style performing has has existed since then
Speaker 1: and kind of you know, grown in other ways. But
Speaker 1: you know, he he has sort of this firm and
Speaker 1: like like you mentioned, like Andrea is such like this
Speaker 1: like very fluid type of performer. So it's been so
Speaker 1: fascinating to kind of see the different angles he's taken
Speaker 1: on who he is. You know, even just like the
Speaker 1: year's leading up to this Flute album, Like it just
Speaker 1: was the times we saw Andrea in public was like
Speaker 1: you know, you would see someone share a photo on
Speaker 1: like Twitter or Instagram. That was like ran into Andrea
Speaker 1: three thousand at the airport and he was just playing
Speaker 1: a flute. I mean, I'm curious, like what you sort
Speaker 1: of you know, as we kind of I think so
Speaker 1: much of the Outcast Prime era.
Speaker 2: Is still in the air. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like it's still kind of feels like feels like, hey,
Speaker 1: a happened yesterday, so it feels like, hey, I still
Speaker 1: number one.
Speaker 2: Somewhere.
Speaker 1: I'm curious where you think that sort of legacy will
Speaker 1: continue on, especially as they get further and further away
Speaker 1: from I'm assuming was their only reunion tour the other
Speaker 1: do I would be very very surprised if they ever
Speaker 1: did another. One would love to be surprised, but I
Speaker 1: very highly doubt they will do it again. I guess, like,
Speaker 1: where do you kind of see that sort of developing
Speaker 1: in the years going forward, and like how that will
Speaker 1: be maintained by outcasts, by the fans and by the
Speaker 1: artists influenced by them.
Speaker 3: They're going to keep influencing everybody. Like you said, there's
Speaker 3: little of them all over pop music. Every song that
Speaker 3: we talk about seems to relate to outcasts and for
Speaker 3: them to be so influential and yet not to have
Speaker 3: any imitators, I mean, nobody tries to sound like them
Speaker 3: because nobody can sound like them. And so I think
Speaker 3: going forward, they're just going to get more influential and
Speaker 3: inspire more different kinds of artists.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and after the break, we have Simon Valsick Levinson
Speaker 1: to talk about Miss Jackson. We are joined now by
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone w Music editor Simon Valsik Levinson. Simon thank
Speaker 1: you for joining.
Speaker 4: Us, Hey guys to see us all.
Speaker 3: Thanks Simon.
Speaker 1: Do you remember sort of like the first time that
Speaker 1: you heard Outcast and kind of like what they they
Speaker 1: to music? The first time that you listened to.
Speaker 5: Them, taking it back to let's say, you know, like
Speaker 5: the mid to late nineties, this is probably like nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety seven, nineteen ninety eight, there was just nobody doing
Speaker 5: it like Outcast. Like I remember, you know, hearing probably
Speaker 5: the first Outcast record that I heard that really made
Speaker 5: an impression on me. It was a Quemini listening to
Speaker 5: that album and listening to just you know how much
Speaker 5: like personality and style both Big Boy and Andre you know,
Speaker 5: we're bringing to the table, how they kind of played
Speaker 5: off of each other. It just it felt like it
Speaker 5: was kind of outside of genre, it was its own thing.
Speaker 5: It was just like this incredibly compelling thing, and I
Speaker 5: was kind of hooked from you know, that point forward.
Speaker 4: I think, so we're a lot of other people.
Speaker 1: You know, with Stantonia, like where do you kind of
Speaker 1: see that falling within the Outcast discography and like what
Speaker 1: it did for them.
Speaker 5: It can be wild to think about how far Outcast
Speaker 5: went over the course of a relatively short period of
Speaker 5: time in the nineties. Right, Big Boy and Andre started
Speaker 5: you know, makeing music together when they were teenagers in
Speaker 5: Atlanta in the early nineties. Their first album came out
Speaker 5: in nineteen ninety four. At that point, you know, that
Speaker 5: was a time win for a lot of people hip
Speaker 5: hop with something it happened, you know in.
Speaker 4: New York or LA.
Speaker 5: Right, they had to really you know, plant the flag
Speaker 5: and remind people, you know, literally, Andre famously said at
Speaker 5: the nineteen ninety five Source Awards, and you know, the
Speaker 5: South has something to say. That was like a controversial
Speaker 5: statement at that time. People were like whoa, Like wow.
Speaker 5: Once they had kind of established that Southern app was
Speaker 5: exciting and important, you know, all the things that we
Speaker 5: know it is now, they immediately went to kind of
Speaker 5: exploding and reinventing that blueprint that they had made themselves.
Speaker 5: And I think, you know, from there it was like
Speaker 5: every two years, Outcast would drop a new album that
Speaker 5: was even more incredible than the one before it. That
Speaker 5: kind of made it feel like the last thing they did,
Speaker 5: which had felt kind of mind blowing and incredible, was
Speaker 5: kind of yesterday's news, and they were on a whole
Speaker 5: other planet. Now and they did that with at Aliens,
Speaker 5: with the Quemini, and then in two thousand, I feel
Speaker 5: like Stanconi was like the ultimate fruition of everything that
Speaker 5: Andrea and Big Boy had been doing prior to that point.
Speaker 5: It was like nothing else, you know, anyone had ever heard,
Speaker 5: you know really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially Andrea like starting to explore more singing on it,
Speaker 1: and I guess testing out sort of his own style.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of reinventing himself.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that's amazing about
Speaker 5: Atcast to me is like you have one of the
Speaker 5: greatest rappers ever, Big Boy, who's just like an incredible rapper.
Speaker 5: You have Andre who's also an incredible rapper, but who
Speaker 5: was almost never felt, you know, content to just be
Speaker 5: a great rapper, right. He was always, even from the beginning,
Speaker 5: trying to kind of, you know, get to this higher philosophical, spiritual,
Speaker 5: mystical plane. And he pushed that farther and farther with
Speaker 5: each album, and you know, it got to the point
Speaker 5: where by the time you get to Stanconia, you press
Speaker 5: play on that album and it starts with Andre like
Speaker 5: metaphorically burning the American flag over, like you know, hard
Speaker 5: rock guitars and a funk beat, and it's like it's
Speaker 5: you know, telling you you're you're kind of you're in
Speaker 5: a different realm now, and you know that that album
Speaker 5: encompasses so many different exciting styles. And you know, I
Speaker 5: think Miss Jackson shows you that one of the styles
Speaker 5: that Andre was interested in doing and Big Boy could
Speaker 5: kind of go along with him to do was pop music,
Speaker 5: you know, and they could they could really do that
Speaker 5: as well as they could do anything else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the transition from a Quemini to Stanconia Our Remember
Speaker 3: is a really kind of shocking transition because everybody would
Speaker 3: have been del I did with just a Quimini part too.
Speaker 3: Everybody kind of wanted more of the same.
Speaker 5: Yes, That's the thing about out Kest was that I think,
Speaker 5: you know, they were so committed to kind of reinventing
Speaker 5: themselves with every album that they did kind of weave
Speaker 5: you wanting more each time, right, So like if you
Speaker 5: wanted more of that, you know, A Quemini was already
Speaker 5: an album that was pushing beyond the box of straightforward
Speaker 5: Southern hip hop to incorporate all kinds of funk and
Speaker 5: soul and so many other things, right, But they weren't
Speaker 5: you content to stop there? And I think I think
Speaker 5: specifically Andrea was interested in doing even more than that.
Speaker 5: Wanted to tear up the rule book like yet again
Speaker 5: for like the third or fourth time in as many albums.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, and what is it about Miss Jackson?
Speaker 1: I guess, like why is it? That song kind of
Speaker 1: broke the way it did and kind of reaches my people,
Speaker 1: is it did?
Speaker 5: It's a great song. It's only one of my favorite
Speaker 5: Outcast songs. I don't know if it's my number one favorite,
Speaker 5: but it is, I mean for sure, Like Miss Jackson,
Speaker 5: I think was their first number one hit, right, it
Speaker 5: was a It was a really exciting thing to see
Speaker 5: like this, you know, if you had been kind of
Speaker 5: following them and listening to them album after album to
Speaker 5: hear that big Boy Andrea were capable of making up
Speaker 5: hit like a song that people would sing along to
Speaker 5: that you could hear coming out of like you know,
Speaker 5: taxis and playing on the radio all the time. That
Speaker 5: was kind of like a new thing for them that
Speaker 5: they and they did that like so effortlessly and without
Speaker 5: kind of like losing who they were. That it was
Speaker 5: really exciting to see those two guys making a number
Speaker 5: one song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what is your number one?
Speaker 4: Outcast on Oh.
Speaker 5: My God, my personal number one song. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: it's hard to they're also, I mean, out Guests were
Speaker 5: such a great albums band that it almost feels like reductive,
Speaker 5: you know, sorry to uh to reduce them to one song, right,
Speaker 5: but for the purposes of this podcast, I mean for me,
Speaker 5: you know, Bombs over a Backdad also on the same
Speaker 5: album from Sanconia.
Speaker 4: That's the song that just like completely.
Speaker 5: Re scrambled my brain when I heard it, but still
Speaker 5: just kind of like no other group really picked up
Speaker 5: that torch, Like no one else is making that kind
Speaker 5: of like psychedelic you know, drum and bassed hard rap
Speaker 5: like at the same time on one song the way
Speaker 5: that you know Andrea and Big Boy did there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was rereading your twenty fourteen interview with Andre
Speaker 1: and how he mentioned the label wanted kid Rock to
Speaker 1: do with the guitar solo on it, which just like
Speaker 1: blew my mind, just like I cannot believe this as
Speaker 1: a concept, like imagining the version of the world where
Speaker 1: there's like the Bombs of our Bagdad featuring kid Rock.
Speaker 5: Yes, that's that's a classic moment of like, you know,
Speaker 5: no offense to whichever you know A and R person
Speaker 5: that was that idea. But that's like a classic moment
Speaker 5: in like major label brain thinking where they're like, what
Speaker 5: Outcast needs on their extract is a kid rock guitards That.
Speaker 4: Made sense to someone at some time in nineteen ninety ninety.
Speaker 3: But then part of the great est of Miss Jackson
Speaker 3: we've been talking about is that it sounded nothing like
Speaker 3: Outcast in terms of like what we already thought Outcast were.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're talking about fore it. The first one
Speaker 3: I ever heard was Rosa Parks, and it was so
Speaker 3: different from anything anybody had done, so aggressively southern, so
Speaker 3: rural as well as so urban, and just such a
Speaker 3: mix of things that it just seemed like it was
Speaker 3: completely insane. That it was like by you know, the
Speaker 3: group that did elevators right, and that they were always
Speaker 3: so committed, like you said, to just rewriting the rule
Speaker 3: book every.
Speaker 5: Time, right, exactly, no, And they did that so many
Speaker 5: times that it was almost it became like a game.
Speaker 5: Listening to them, like what are they going to do
Speaker 5: next time? How is this going to completely upend my expectations?
Speaker 5: And you know, right now, I think for Andre three
Speaker 5: thousand and that's you know, by doing what he's doing
Speaker 5: now is something it's not even on just like a
Speaker 5: it's on a whole different planet from what he did
Speaker 5: with Outcast, and that's you know, it's exciting to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even like I mean my introduction to them was
Speaker 1: speaker Box the Love Below and kind of the bigness
Speaker 1: of hay On and Roses and everything around the entire album,
Speaker 1: and even that, you know, kind of going back afterwards
Speaker 1: and hearing everything or like it just feels like such
Speaker 1: like a different group each time. And of course like
Speaker 1: at a wild after like that, it's just like it
Speaker 1: feels like something completely different. Like the fact that they
Speaker 1: were able to kind of keep it in a way
Speaker 1: where each album is so much inventing themselves, Like it
Speaker 1: does end up making sense that eventually, you know, Andre
Speaker 1: kind of goes like completely left field and like try
Speaker 1: something completely new. You know, it just felt like such
Speaker 1: a different group every single time in a way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a great point, and I'm glad you brought
Speaker 5: up with Speakerbox to love Blow. That's another like an
Speaker 5: even more successful album and an incredible album, but you
Speaker 5: know that's obviously famously like an album that has two halves,
Speaker 5: where you know, Big Boy and Andrea were on such
Speaker 5: different pages that they had to make sort of two albums.
Speaker 5: They couldn't make one album that contained both of their visions.
Speaker 5: In retrospect, Stanconie is kind of the last time that
Speaker 5: their diverging visions could be fit on one album and
Speaker 5: could kind of work together. And I think, I mean
Speaker 5: Mims Jackson is an example of that, right, Like you
Speaker 5: can hear on that song, Andrea is stretching to you know,
Speaker 5: do these these new things and to make a love
Speaker 5: song and a heartbreak song and a pop song. Big
Speaker 5: Boys is still there, you know, keeping keeping outcasts grounded
Speaker 5: in the kind of the traditional kind of like clever
Speaker 5: slick talking, you know, rap music that he's so excellent at,
Speaker 5: and you hear both of their visions kind of for
Speaker 5: one of the last times still kind of working together.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love the way that you described Big Boys kind
Speaker 1: of keeping outcasts sort of grounded in kind of what
Speaker 1: they've like, what they've always done, and sort of what
Speaker 1: the core of outcasts and who they are. I mean,
Speaker 1: tell me about sort of your own kind of relationship
Speaker 1: with his solo music sense and like what he's sort
Speaker 1: of I mean, he's also had like I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like, just like such a fascinating journey since Outcast
Speaker 1: has broken up and then reunited and then broken up again.
Speaker 5: But yeah, right, yeah, no, it's it's fascinating, like so
Speaker 5: one interesting thing that happened with Outcast. You know, in
Speaker 5: the nineties, I would say, there were always these debates
Speaker 5: about who's the better rapper, Andre or a Big Boy,
Speaker 5: And for many years people would kind of maybe would
Speaker 5: would think that Andrea was the greater. And you know,
Speaker 5: there's a strong case to be made there, right, He's
Speaker 5: someone who has this kind of this other level to him,
Speaker 5: who is constantly kind of like pushing and expanding at
Speaker 5: the same time. I think you can make an argument
Speaker 5: that Big Boy on his own, even you know, without
Speaker 5: Andrea on his own, is an incredible, you know, top
Speaker 5: category rapper. And I think he's shown that in his
Speaker 5: solo career. Sir Lucius left Foot, the first Big Boy
Speaker 5: album that he put out, is an example of how
Speaker 5: you know, I think there was a real question for
Speaker 5: him there, like can big Boy make a great album
Speaker 5: without Andre pushing him to kind of you know, try
Speaker 5: new things and expand and the answer.
Speaker 4: Is like, yeah, he can.
Speaker 5: Like that's just an incredibly fun, charismatic, kind of enjoyable
Speaker 5: Southern rap album that you really shows that, you know,
Speaker 5: big boy can hold his own and hold the spotlight.
Speaker 5: And he's done that many times since then in his
Speaker 5: solo career.
Speaker 1: And we've talked a lot about on this podcast, and
Speaker 1: especially with bands like this or artists like this, where
Speaker 1: their legacy is always evolving and the way that they
Speaker 1: sort of interact with it is complicated and you know,
Speaker 1: unique and Okay is a perfect example of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: what do you sort of see as sort of the
Speaker 1: future of Outcast legacy and influence? I mean, we were
Speaker 1: trying to piece together artists that are more explicitly inspired
Speaker 1: by them. It's so hard to pin down because no
Speaker 1: one can really do what Outcast has done. So you know,
Speaker 1: of course the influence is there and kind of looms
Speaker 1: over everything, but there aren't any there's no one who
Speaker 1: can do exactly what Outcasts was able to do. And
Speaker 1: so I mean, I guess what do you kind of
Speaker 1: see as the future of that legacy and influence over
Speaker 1: the years.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, it's s right right on one level, like
Speaker 5: no one is outcast, no one can be outcast. At
Speaker 5: the same time, I think that you can see their
Speaker 5: influence in you know, almost just like the whole category
Speaker 5: of music and pop music in terms of what you know,
Speaker 5: a group can do, what two people can do, there
Speaker 5: are so many, you know, at the time in nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty eight or nineteen night nine, two thousand, it was
Speaker 5: still controversial and kind of like challenging to say that,
Speaker 5: you know, a rapper might want to sing on an
Speaker 5: album instead of rapping, or might want to make funk
Speaker 5: or rock or psychedelic music. Now that kind and we
Speaker 5: kind of take that for granted and tons of artists
Speaker 5: you know, do that and do great things at that.
Speaker 5: It's not questioned anymore, and that's you know, that's a
Speaker 5: way is something that I think Outke has kind of
Speaker 5: opened the door to in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Thank you so much for joining us today, Simon.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me, Thank you anytime.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stones five hundred
Speaker 1: Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone and iHeartMedia. Rinnan hosted by me Britney Spanis and
Speaker 1: Rob Sheffield executive produced by Gus Winner, Jason Fine, Alex
Speaker 1: Dale and Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon, with
Speaker 1: music supervision by Eric Seiler