Outkast's "Ms. Jackson"

That's right, Diolo. 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 was 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 a hundred three thousand. It's off of his new album, new blues son.

And if you're wondering why I am using my NPR voice, it's strictly the 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 have it. No, as you can tell from what”

Let's raise now playing, we're going further back in time to the year 2000. This episode of one song goes out to all the baby

Momma's, Momma's, baby Momma's, Momma's, Momma's, Momma's, Momma's all the Momma's and all the babies. That's right, on this episode of one song, we're apologizing a trillion times and talking about outcasts, a seven or three times plan on billboard chart topping owed to complicated relationships. That's right, we are talking outcasts and the song, Miss Jackson. If you're nasty.

“Different Miss Jackson. Oh, correct. Actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diola Rittle. And I'm producer DJ and songwriter luxury, aka the guy who's sometimes frequently often even talks about”

and even whispers about compilation. And this is one song. My friend, I am so excited to be talking about not just Miss Jackson, but about outcasts. I mean, this is I've been waiting for this episode. I am so stoked too. We were full and much, 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. I feel like I'll cast as back in the public guy is 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 outcasts. I'll 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 at this single. Miss Jackson was the first outcast single to hit number one of Billboard at the 2001 Grammy Awards. It won two Grammys won 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-hop albums, just best albums. So Diolo, I want to start by asking you this. Miss Jackson drops in 2000. So right around hip-hop's 25th birthday. What is the 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 of maturing. Like if you think about it, this song is about the sloppiness of break-ups. You know what I mean? Like, having children out of wedlock, you would want with a suit. Like, you know, there's no surprise here. Andre had been in a serious relationship with the Erica Badu. The Miss Jackson and the song is based on her mom. But I mean, it's a very mature thing. I mean, like, if you think about it was literally only, okay, this 2015 years earlier, you still can't like, you know, run DMC. It's like that. That's the way it is, you know, you still got Curtis.

But like, these are great songs. Right. These are essentially like party songs. Party rock and brekido show. Party rock and yeah, some bragging going on. My Adidas, my shoes are better than you write. Like, this is literally talk about the intricacies of a relationship. So it's, 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 it'd been kind of coming along throughout the 90s.

I feel like the 90s is when hip-hop starts taking on more complicated subjects and albums like the Miss Education 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'll talk about expanding the genre. We're literally talking about that moment at the source awards where expanding that the geography of hip-hop, you know, when talking a little bit about what happened in 1995 at the source awards. You know, me, you know, I'm from Atlanta. You know, outcast when he was at the source awards saying, you know, the South has something to say, like, you know, we heard that and we had been supporting, okay, so I wanted to take a step back and just talk about Atlanta real quick and, you know,

Atlanta sort of an interesting city from on on the hip-hop map at the time, you know, you basically had two camps, you know, I figure, you're, this is the inside of you because you're growing up, you are in Atlanta. I went to high school, they're older than me, but I went to high school with the goody mob, you know, I mean, I went to the same model, how cast, goody mob, same model, so we all went to remember our mall and actually, that's something I want to talk about too.

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, my high school, they 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 day-lost souls, right?”

Yeah, there was a lot of, you know, a group from Atlanta gets forgotten a lot as a rest of the development, you know, like, yeah, the rest of the first are they like that.

They, our cast are not technically the first, the rest of all, it's on the radio. And listen, Atlanta had the rappers, but, you know, like, as far as establishing in Atlanta, sound, I don't know that we had that, like, speech and a rest of the development, they felt very much like they went to, you know, more house and spell them. They called the Atlanta University, you know, the AU schools, like, and I had people with my schools who dress like that, and they had, like, diggable planets down there.

There was a guy in my high school, whose name was her Sheen, but everybody called him grasshopper, you know, like, there was, there was, like, that, see, they dressed like hippies a lot, they dressed like, there was a lot of stuff, there was a lot of stuff. Why is 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 rappers 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 in WA type life.

And the other half, we're really about, like, that day last soul and try to call quest type life. And, you know, arrested a film that was there, we had a group called y'all so stupid, there was very, like, very few people remember 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, how cast and they went first. They were in part by Tipper Gores warning circles, I mean, well, listen, I'm telling you, PA is they were short, if you listen to that first outcast record, he gives a lot of shout outs to PA.

Because parental advisory was in that same, these are all proto, uh, proto rap groups out of the dungeon family click and they, they were more tries city.

We're talking about the dungeon in a minute. We're going to talk about the dungeon in a very important. They were more tries cities. I went to maze. If you know the difference, like maze was sort of like more middle-class tries cities was still a little bit, still a little bit wild, but like, we all congregated at Lenick Square Mall, at Green Breyer Mall. And if you know the history of our part of Atlanta, uh, and I know I'm being verbose, but I gotta 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. It's like, ideal favorite material. It's just guy. He's like a famous diver.

“Clinton Warner, I believe, and famously moved into the Peyton Forest area.”

Wow.

Every white family in the Peyton Forest neighborhood, which is the, it's all part of Cascade Heights, we're all of us are from.

They panicked. Okay. They actually billed with like 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... It's been a very boring movement. Well, he's progressed all the time.

Wow. But black families continue to move into the neighborhood, including my family, which moved there in 1974. I went around here, but like we moved into the Cascade Heights area, our family did in 1974.

“But that's 1974, 1972. 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. There were only years. In the 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 black 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 late 70s. It was just like a black mecca. 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 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 jobs were black. And the nerves were black. The bullies were black.

The bullies were black. And I look at Andre and I look at his path.

And when they're able to say, "Okay, what's really going on inside with me?"

“Well, you know, it makes sense that one guy is sort of like a street guy.”

And another guy is like this amazing artistic poetry. A poetry guy. Right. 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 friends. They're also friends. They're playing each other sentences. Yes.

And they're also meant 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 it sounds that way. Yes.

It'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 eventually the TIs and the ludicrouss. 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 take a quick step back, talk a little bit about the history of the band. And it actually starts. It's funny. It's funny to call my band.

I always think I know groups.

They're a band. They're a group of this red band. They're a band. Well, it's funny because they are almost called the misfits like that. That's crazy.

That's really funny to me. Yeah. Because obviously outcasts, misfits, 80 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, I mean, we got to find another name. 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 was some motorcycle enthusiast. 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. We all talk a little about organized noise.

This is a group of three dudes, Rico Wade, Ray Murray and Sleepy Brown, who basically, I think it was Rico Wade's literally downstairs basement. It's barely, it's barely a basement. There's a dirt floor. So they call it the dungeon, the dungeon.

And this is where they start to make music. Yep. And there's a place that they could go 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 listening to music doesn't always know that these songs.

How are the music is made? I'm listening from TLC's waterfalls to ludicrous Saturday. Like all the, like they've produced so many songs. That's right. Yeah, that's right.

Well, you're absolutely right. And this is where this is where Outcast as like teenagers. Literally. Here's where Andre and Antoine has like literally 17 18 year olds. Dude, our learning how to write music and make music together.

And 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 city. And I was just going through the, the bins as people typically do.

“And I remember pulling out a CD where the guys had on a land.”

They had on a land of Braves hats. And I was like, what? And I look on the back and they had a, a, an intern. 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. There's like the fourth track on the album or something like that. This is something playlistic.

I had never heard anything.

You're not used to seeing the word Atlanta. I did not use 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, this is what's so interesting to me is that it's,

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. I think 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 way. Like, oh, the Jefferson airplanes from San Francisco, whatever, who cares?

That clearly hip hop, the geographic centrality of hip hop.

“Yes, there's something about hearing the local guys”

wrap about the variable representation. I know what that is. That's me. I've connected to this band. I feel connected to this.

Say they had so much love. And again, shout out to the rest of the development. Shout out to y'all so stupid. It was really outcast organized noise, Mr. DJ, who was sort of like the Alicia Heeb Muhammad of outcast.

This DJ does not get mention 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, they established what the dirty south sound was going to be. Like, there are 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 put honey? Just go through all of this. Something trees, screaming trees. Screaming trees.

There's Seattle Grunge band, right? As much as those Grunge bands said, this is a sound of Seattle. Yeah. I feel like Alcast and Goody, Muhammad, all those guys said, this is the sound of the south, distinctly the south.

Not Texas, not Miami, but everything else, Alabama, South Carolina. That meant a lot to you, because especially in this moment as we've been talking about Atlanta, before prior to outcast, it exists a little bit culturally in the radar of the dark 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 Dre and the whole death row crew doing alternatives to sampling based music, sampling based hip-hop. But organized noise, particularly are really focused on how much instrumentation can we add?

“How much can we grab the talented base players from the community?”

Bring them into the studio and work with them. And recreate ideas. And they are definitely interpolating. And they're not sampling. But the sampling becomes more of a sonic thing.

It's less than a whole taking a whole new bomb loop of something and looping it. They're doing something completely different. I mean, the chronic cannot be overstated how huge that. I mean, the chronic is like the atom bomb of hip-hop. Because chronic is the atom bomb and it's the reason why they convince LaFace,

like literally it's based to sign outcast. Because they're uncomfortable. It sounds like LA read and LaFace records are not like they're, it's not their expertise. These are R&B guys.

Yeah, like pop radio guys. Yeah. And arrested. Right.

And I always keep coming in and saying, hey, look,

we got these great these two guys outcasts are going to be the next big thing. And LA read is not aware of not comfortable with not familiar with hip-hop until the chronic comes out cells of building 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, I get, here's the, here's the green light. I'm telling you as an intern in the summer of 1995. Yeah. After Alcass's first album is actually out there. You know, like it's out there.

People are happy about it. Like the city of Atlanta's happy about Alcass.

“You still got the sense, why is Alcass on an R&B label?”

And what's also a surprise? We had a legitimate rap label in town. We had so, so deaf, which had a little house right at the corner of Peedmont in Peach Tree, which ironically is like walking distance to the face artist. Either the face office is on Peach Tree.

So like they were within walking distance. But they were like, we're all the part because so, so deaf was, we already knew Germany to pre, who, you know, he had like, I want to say he had a relationship with the MCShide and DJ Smurf. And like, these were the guys in Atlanta who were making Miami-based records.

But then they had a huge huge crossover success with Chris Cross. Like Chris Cross's jump, like if you were alive in 1991 and had a radio, you heard jumps several times an hour. Like, yeah. 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 on the street, down the block. Right, right, right, right, selling. Oh, we got to get records. We just got to cross our fingers and jump.

Then every, we're probably like, oh, we got to get a jump for the ocean. We got to get some of this route money. So they do and they put out this 1993 comp of very LaFace Christmas with players ball, which is ostensibly a Christmas song. What's funny about it?

It's beginning to look a lot like what? It's beginning to look like a lot. It just, it tricks you right off the bat with that first time. It came in strong. He was like, I'm already going to reinterpret it.

Let's play it. Let's go for it. This is the version on the album. Let's play those songs. I mean, I love that version.

I like this version better personally.

“No, okay. So this is what I want to talk about.”

This is, this is called the extended remix. That's right. This was very hard to find. Okay. So the version with sleigh 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. It's like, that's not the version that got a lot.

It's not the album. The album is 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, fine. Because like it was on Japanese press, so you can say stuff like,

but no, trust me, any time you could break that one out at a party. Which I did find the 12 inch once I started DJing. That was the version that we all loved. And it is because of those piano chords. It's so sweet.

Jazz. Absolutely. They're freaking beautiful. Beautiful chords. Like, deep house chords.

You literally probably loved them. Yeah, well, as soon as you said that, about 19,000 laptops fired up. And then I'm garage band. Right. So this leads us all to 2000 and the fourth album, Stankonia,

which coincides with this, the artist's growth, the band growth, the worldwide popularity of outcast, is 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 studio.

I heard that they said they waited outside for Bobby Brown for like days on it. And he sold it to them. They renamed it Stank. Stankonia. I didn't know that the only part, you know, Stank is Stank.

You know, monkey.

But like the only 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 a poster and Andrei's bedroom called Plutonia comes from Plutonia, which is a futuristic city.

“So a place I imagine you could, I think it's probably all those things.”

I mean, this is... No, no, that's the end. No, but I'm saying like Stankonia sounds like I'm a put that Stankonia. No, that was what I always thought it was just a pun. I think it's clearly a pun.

I don't know why. It's a pun in a pun. That's all good. That's all good. This is also at the time when Alkaz is saying like,

they're like, Stank you very much. They say that a lot in the interviews. But go ahead. I love the puns, though. I love like the word play.

They'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 free, the flute album. He's a funny dude. It's very fun.

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 Thomas. To the real heads.

I feel like Alkaz is strong because, you know, as much as Andre kills it when he ever does guess versus.

Big boys got some amazing guess 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 give the sense they're trying to occupy each other's lanes. You know what I mean? They respect each other's creativity.

Yeah. There's so much. They love each other. They love each other's brothers. And at this point, they're ready to start producing for themselves.

They gradually started acquiring other skills. Andre is there like learning to play guitar and it turns out that he starts to write this on. We're about to talk about today on guitar. And they bring in a third guy who's there are touring DJ. That's David Mr. DJ Sheets.

Who's been there from the beginning? Been there from the beginning. Three of them form the earth tone. Eleven one production crew. So together with David Mr. DJ Sheets,

they form this earth tone three 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.

I'm amazing track. Of course. And they are taking 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. Yeah. 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 passage of time. I thought it was the first single off this album. B.O.B. was the first one.

Bombs over bad dead. Which I, I really liked that song. Like, but apparently like critics loved it. And audiences were like, kind of weird even for outcast. And, and didn't really respond to it.

Even though it's got like, you know, a really upbeat, driving sound. But it's, it's Miss Jackson that captured everybody's attention. Yeah. So let's talk about it.

We have the stems.

“And what, 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, not a lot of sampling. There is some sampling. There is some sampling here.

“There's some creative reuse of recorded material.”

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 theme is reverse sound. And this is what it is. So this is Raj Kahla playing. The Kongas, and 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. Reverse. In other words, forwards.

Here's what was actually performed.

Wow, that's nice. Yeah. It's just a guy playing the Kongas. And that guy. And that guy.

Backwards, that's what gets the, yeah. Yep. That's Raj Kahla playing Kongas. And then having, and then the tape is flip 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 had. So it makes you got. Yeah. That was like, what is the instrument? 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. If you 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 Canyon. I'll bring the beats back in.

Those backwards I had. The backwards talk is all together. And when you know that it's. When you learn that it's cameo. Yeah.

Of course. There's just things. I want to hear candy somewhere. I got candy cute up right here for you. Oh, there you go.

[MUSIC] You really feel like you have an idea of what's going on. What we're Andre and I want to say Andre and Andre. Where Andre and Big boy were 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. Oh, yeah. I mean to the funk, right? I mean, I think humor is strong in the outcast family.

Is that is it strong in Atlanta? Is that in Atlanta? I listen. I listen to humor. There's something.

Hell yeah.

“I'll never forget when Andre got out of the song with Kesha of all people.”

He was like, I call it Kesha because she thinks it's good to her. You know, like, you know, yeah, that was like some low hanging Atlanta humor fruit. And 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. There's another lie performance.

This is from Marvin Chan's Parkman. I don't know why his nickname is Chan's. But when Chan's gets on the sense, this is what Chan's. Usually 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 March. But it's also got that, you know. Yeah, it's got a little part of the song. It's not just, but it's brilliant.

But that is an interpolation, if you will. You know, technically it's more of a reference. It's not an N.D. What is that? That is the bridal chorus from Richard Wagner's 1850 opera.

Shout out to Wagner. Wrong. It's long out of copyright. Long out of copyright. Yeah.

So it's not protected. Anyone can, you can write a new song using it. If you like it. The wedding March, right? So that's the here comes the bride.

It's often called here comes the band. It's like they come to the bride. 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.

[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] And that's happening throughout the whole song. [MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] What's cool is that it's that 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 Hendrick. So Cass has always-- He's a little wonky in a good way.

It's just like the Beatles in the sense

that even the casual observer can see, the group that they are in 2000, or the group that they are having for bid by 2005, is not the same group that put out Southern Playlist or Cadillac music in 1994.

It's just not the same group. And you're on the ground. You're on the ride with them. Yeah.

“You know, like, it's like, no, why should they stay the same?”

I mean, let them go wherever they're imagined. 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 get way 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. I'm so excited about it. What about you talk about that? Only 3,000 creative journey.

And he's creative like-- And I want to talk about Big Boy, because I feel like he has had a journey of his own. Okay. Listen, after the break, we'll be getting deeper into Miss Jackson.

So we'll be right back. Let's get back to the stems. What you got next for us? The synths, that kind of high-pitched keyboard, just the three-core thing that goes through the entire song.

It's actually credited not to an any individual, but it's credited to Earththome 3 as a whole. And here it is. That's it. Really simple.

And we'll make more into the base, base note. But can I say that is some sheer synth perfect. That is some synth. That's some sort of-- I really like that.

So I'm actually human-like. I'd say more than to Peshmo.

“The Peshmo would be a little more interesting.”

Again, play it again. Let's hear one more time. I'm hearing a lot of human-like in that. Or Casperl. Or Casperl.

Or the tone. You're right. It's OMD. For the sound. There's something here.

It reminded me of this, just because we're talking about it. By the way. That's because it reminds me. It's like softly, as if I pay piano in the dark. Like, I wonder if he was thinking that when he played that.

Because we have a podcast and it's fun to play music. You just reminds me of this. Is that-- It's just a chord. Sorry to say it, sir.

I'll go to you. [MUSIC PLAYING] You say it's blue, blue, blue. We say it's real strong. And the human league, like the potential for the human league, outcast crossover.

If anybody's still doing mashups, first off, you're one of your two-lates. But try that. See if it works. So those are your sins.

We've never heard all the instruments.

“And if you'd like to, we can get into the vocals.”

There's all 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 I like. I like that. That's the whole thing on. Okay. Here we go.

Yeah. This one right here goes out to all the babies. Mama's mama's mama's. Thanks. The baby mama's mama's.

And then there's this woo. I know. Go like that. I mean, it makes the song instantly 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 began 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 babies. Mama's mama's mama's mama's mama's. Like he-- Yes.

It's almost like in a pre-tiktok age. He understood that there was a certain brain algorithm this like man. Look at the second 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. This is going to immediately draw people in.

Yeah. And he was like, and with that advice, Snoop wrote one, two, three, and two, the fuck. He's like counting. Like everybody knows what's going to come.

But how are you going to reinvent counting? Like, like, good wraps on the drawing 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, 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. That might have worked.

Right. Back in the day. Paul and John, they let some money on the table. Just like-- They should've snowed it out.

They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out.

They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out.

They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out.

They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out.

They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out.

They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out.

They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out.

They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out.

They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. They should've snowed it out. That line kind of blows me away. That's beautiful.

Right?

“Folks of heat asking what happened to the fillin that hurt in me had.”

I pray so much about it. Need some knee pads. It happened for what reason one came be. Man. So know this.

Know that everything's cool. And yes, I will be present on the first day of school. And graduation. So I remember Jackson. Can you guys do it?

Oh, I love it. Let's get technical with Andre's voice. Because he has such a rich voice just when he's talking. When you hear him in interviews, you're like, Oh, yeah. That dude.

I guess there was no such thing as rap. Maybe he would have been an announcer. You know what I mean? He's got such a rich voice. And yeah, I do hear some effect on that.

Yeah. This is delay. Is that what that is? Thoughts of heat asking what happened to the fillin. There's reverb.

Yeah. It gives it that feeling of being in a church. Yes.

And then I always think like a big hallway.

And then at the end of the line, you can hear a little delay. Thoughts of heat asking what happened to the fillin that hurt in me had. I pray so much. I actually suppose I take that back. That's all reverb 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. Life long 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 author of them. So 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 the time when the only signs we had with pickets.

You know, like just from the start, he's hitting you. Yeah. And then he goes into, you know, jayans, killing brothers for colors, things that we were just a fashion, other brothers used it for a reason to be blessing. 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 Calculac accent.

It's a very specific accent. It's a very specific exit. They're not going to fall into it. I need to fall into that exit. I can fall into that exit.

Oh, boy. You know what I mean? It's just another piano. It's a listen. I grew up there.

You know what I mean?

“And now let's listen to the iconic hook with all of its different hook sub hooks.”

This is the hook with like multiple sub hooks within a hook. I'm sorry, Miss Jackson. I am for real.

Never meant to make you doubt a cry.

I apologize a trillion times. I'm sorry, Miss Jackson. I am for real. Never meant to make you doubt a cry. A pilot.

That's a trillion times. Now you have to rank the hooks. What is the top hook within a hook of that hook? Interesting. Is it the who?

I mean, the who's infectious. I think you got to have it all. I think it all comes together. Because you're taking a part of it off. It's almost like Alcass itself.

If you take away big boy is Andre, which is amazing, but it's not Alcass. I don't want it to be the burger. I want the bun. I want the cast. 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 now it is almost every rapper has a singing voice. Yeah. 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 may be most deaf.

Lauren Hill and most deaf are rapping and singing in equal parts. But this is a new look for for Alcass. Like, you know, he's singing a lot. Well, it's funny. You mentioned that because the other part 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.

Go in.

You say it's public loan.

We say it's foreground. That do we feel this? Feel this way forever. That's like a beach boy is kind of like crazy. That was crazy.

Right? That was so pit sounds.

“You know, I think it was 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 looking through the part that was on the beat. You know what I mean? Right?

Yeah. That's on a very different part of the beat. That was super cool. Yeah. He's playing with counterpoint.

And he's maybe listening to the beach boy. 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?”

Yeah. It makes sense because over the course of time in the song, it's built to that moment. Also 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.

It sounds like Erica Badu around that time. You know, I mean, like that. You know, I need a room shot, baby. You know, like, you could, she rubbed off on him. Well, it reminds me of sleepy brown himself who's doing this like that in their previous,

in their previous songs. Right? He's doing his, he's doing his Curtis Mayfield. Yeah. I mean, there's no way you think it.

Right? By the way, shout out to Big Rube, who's a major part of all those early outcast records. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because they were obviously in the studio with organized noise.

And the same way I'm saying, some of that Erica probably rubbed off on Andre. Some of that organized noise. Yeah. But then when it came time for Andre and Big Boy to produce their own song. Yeah.

Because when you're in the room with someone creatively and you see them doing it. Yeah. It is representation matters. That is like, oh, that is something 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 fluid album that Big Boy is such an important part of Alcast to me. Because again, it's like, 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 Alcast means so much to us.”

And that's why, so many of us really loved Big Boy just as much as out if you're a real Alcast fan. You love Big Boy. And that's why I actually like to see Big Boy shout to daddy fat stacks. 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. He's just left. 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 in 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, under,

estimate or under appreciate. Let me ask you how often, how often should we not do it. So we never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. Not at all. Let's hear that.

[laughs] The other thing that Andre does a lot in his verses that I really appreciate. He's got a very, sort of, like, why, sort of, like, sense of, like, beginnings and endings. Let, 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 into that guy in the mall. Then he hasn't seen a long time. Yeah.

You know, he's standing there facial expression looking silly in that. And like, he talks. He says, um, the line that he says, uh, 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 a Rosa Parks. When the record gets to skipping and slowing down. I hope you can still say them brothers had their crown.

had their crown, but until then, uh-huh, was that first.

Like, he's very much talked about their makeup a time when there is no outcasts or people aren't checking for outcasts. He comes back to that often, almost as much as like two-pock talked about dying, or getting shot. Like, two-pock thought a lot about that, and Andre taught a lot about their makeup a time when

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, 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. What I'm so inspired, especially by his most recent moves, after giving up the greatest hip-hop act of all time, to, according to many, and certainly according to the like sales

of speaker box that love below, and go on to do what he wants to do with his days, you know, even though he puts success down and he left it there, and everyone wonders why, well, because he's driven by creativity.

“And 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 will bang in the spa." And I kind of agree. Yeah, I think he would do. He's not like, that'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 Al-Qas, and you are

missing Al-Qas, and this obviously does nothing to make you not miss Al-Qas. I mean, like, I give props to Al-Qas, Leslie Jones, he 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 Al-Qas is or was what it was for me, it presumably Leslie, just your favorite hip-hop group. It is a part of you that a rindless instrumental flute album. It only sort of exacerbates your, like, desire to hear from him. You know what I mean?

I remember 2007, Al-Qas, by that point, had broken up, and Andre personally had like an amazing year of features. He's on the walk it out remix with, you know, DJ Honkies and throw some D's on it, he's on that remix and crushed it. That was the year that he came out with that epic other flow he did about marriage on

the International Players Anthem by UGK.

“Like, the second outcast broke up, he was, like, on, I think that's the year he did his”

verse on party, would be on say. You know, like, he was coming with all these amazing firsts after verse, after verse, and there's a part of us that miss is 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, we're an artist needs to go. But you've heard this from me before, in my opinion, Al-Qas is very much like that 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 Al-Qas album, there's not going to be another Dap punk album. Oh, one of the members is coming out with an album, and it's all classical music. Okay, this is how you're that, and this is the narcissism of fandom, don't.

Like, totally, not fans, totally self fans already like. It's totally selfish.

Either way, there are enough Al-Qas albums that we can always go back and revisit those

and back here, I'm going to suggest anybody who has never listened to Southern playlists, 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 Al-Qas records. It's not that these groups Al-Qas and Dap punk 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 it. You know what I mean? Yeah. All right, so, y'all, this is the first time you've heard this song this way.

I'm broken up into those isolated chunks. How is that experience for you? Did it change? I got its appreciation for the... Yes.

Look, I always knew there was something different, different, sonically happening with Al-Qas.

And almost any other group that was out there. Yeah.

“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 rise the live instrumentation. Yeah. And 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 techs that different. Yeah. 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.

There are loops in the beat, but the rest of it is a human playing through 4/3 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 end to the agree about sampling and what looks, you know, the feel of a loop. The feel of a loop is its own special thing. The feel of craft, fork, metronomic, precision, death punk. But also the feeling of a band or performers performing is a special thing to it.

I, part of Al-Qas, is that. I love Al-Qas, I love the way their music sounded different. The new new thing else, not just on the radio, but almost anything else in hip-hop. So yeah, we support live musicians and we support musicians. And we support sampling.

And we support interpolations. We love it all. A lot of ways to get a cat or to make a song, which is why it's going to cat. That's a strange expression. Please don't skin cats out there.

Shout out to not skin cats. Yeah. So it's been 20 years since Ms. Jackson was released long, actually. It's been a little bit long. Yeah.

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 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 tick-tock list. What about within the Al-Qas? But within the Al-Qas, kind of like, look, I love this song.

It means a lot to, you know, Al-Qas fans are the sensitive like, by this point, you really know that these guys are maturing because they're coming with deeply personal. Yeah. Material that is not, like you said earlier, it's not bragging, it's not description of street life.

No, this is like, hey, this is what's going on with me today. So it's, it's way up there. I mean, you're talking three. What is your top three? Okay.

And I now cast top three. And I'm on the spot. Okay, here we go. Number one, gotta 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 gonna say she lives in my lap just because it is a song that could not have been on Southern Playlist, like, like, to me, that song and it's wonderful atmospheric goodness.

Okay, it is, like, a truly just an amazing song.

It's just an amazing song. It's just a great song. She lives in my lap. It's almost sounds like Prince. I love the story about we don't have time to get into the day, but after they did

the reunion show at Koachella, Prince called Andre to, like, give him advice and basically rate the show. Yeah, yeah.

“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 outcasts for their rapping, but it's the spoken word masterpiece, Spodiodi, delicious, but to this day, there are so many classic moments in that song from a masterful big boy, my post office, they call you back, because you had cloudy piss, because you felt a drunken, 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, "Who would have hollywood coat?"

Which, listening to, I always said he said hollywood cold, 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 but 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 Niske Lake, which was really nice, like that was where some black folks had houses on a lake, like,

I'd briefly dated a girl who lived on Niske 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, Spodiodi, musically, it's been sampled so many times, they've done house remixes of it.

“To me, like, and I think why, to finish out this answer, my favorite album, Stan alone,”

album by Alcast, is, I want to say it's a love below and speaker box, but it might be a quimini, because a quimini was more than ATLians, I hear a lot of people's favorites. A quimini was just so, it was, 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

than sports than in the world of art, but yeah, I think Spodiodi takes the top spot, and I think a quimini 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, ATLian, Diallo Riddle. That's right, and this has been one song, we will see you next time.

No one can't. No, no, no, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't. No, it's not the woo, when it's time to woo.