Stankonia (2000)

Stankonia is the fourth studio album by the American hip hop duo Outkast, released on October 31, 2000, by LaFace Records and Arista Records. The album was recorded in the duo's recently purchased Atlanta recording facility, Stankonia Studios, which allowed for fewer time and recording constraints, and featured production work from Earthtone III (a production team consisting of Outkast and Mr. DJ) and longtime collaborators Organized Noize.

For the follow-up to their 1998 album Aquemini, the duo worked to create an expansive and experimental musical aesthetic, incorporating a diverse array of styles including funk, rave music, psychedelia, gospel, and rock within a Dirty South-oriented hip-hop context. During the recording sessions, André 3000 began moving beyond traditional rapping in favor of a more melodic vocal style, an approach to which Big Boi and several other producers were initially unaccustomed. Lyrically, the duo touched upon a wide range of subject matters, including sexuality, politics, misogyny, African-American culture, parenthood, and introspection. Stankonia featured appearances from a variety of local musicians discovered by the group while they were visiting clubs in their native city of Atlanta, Georgia.

Stankonia received universal acclaim from music critics upon its release and has since been regarded by many to be one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 525,000 copies in its first week. It was supported by three singles: "B.O.B", "Ms. Jackson", and "So Fresh, So Clean"; "Ms. Jackson" became the group's first single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. At the 44th Annual Grammy Awards, Outkast won Best Rap Album for Stankonia and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for "Ms. Jackson". In 2003, the album was ranked number 359 on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", 361 in a 2012 revision, and 64 in a 2020 reboot of the list. A re-issue of the album for its twentieth anniversary with previously unreleased remixes was released on October 30, 2020. Another re-issue for the twenty-fifth anniversary was released on October 31, 2025.

Background

In 1998, OutKast released their third album Aquemini to critical acclaim while diversifying and expanding their sound. The album's success also attracted national attention to the Southern hip hop scene. Having collaborated on the Aquemini track "Skew It on the Bar-B", the Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon later recalled the duo's impact at the time: "Before that, the South just wasn't played in New York. But that song was hot, the flows was crazy. The cycle changed. It really opened up the door for Southern rappers."

In March 1998, OutKast purchased a studio near Northside Drive in Atlanta. Formerly owned by the R&B singer Bobby Brown, the studio was the first place the duo had ever recorded vocals together – on a remix of TLC's "What About Your Friends" (1992) – and held sentimental value for them. Outkast named the studio "Stankonia", a word created by André 3000 as a portmanteau of the words "stank" (a slang synonym for "funky") and "Plutonia" (the title of a poster in his bedroom depicting a futuristic city). As he explained, "Stankonia is this place I imagined where you can open yourself up and be free to express anything".

Recording

The recording of Stankonia began in the spring of 1999 and lasted for about a year. Owning a studio helped the group expand creatively, as the duo did not need to worry about time constraints that would occur with a rented studio. André 3000 observed, "You can sit there and fuck with just a kick and a snare all day long if you want to ... You're not working on the clock. Really, you're just working on your mind." Big Boi spent the majority of the recording time in the studio, while André 3000 worked at home, creating beats and experimenting with an acoustic guitar. One song that came from a jam session on the guitar was "Ms. Jackson", the album's second single. André 3000 also created song lyrics by writing words on the walls of his home: "I had planned to paint my house anyway; writing on the walls was just something I would do". One stray lyric on his wall eventually developed into "Gasoline Dreams".