release date: Sep. 29, 1998
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,68]
producer: Outkast, Organized Noize, Mr. DJ, Donny Mathis
label: LaFace - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 2. "Return of the 'G' " - 3. "Rosa Parks" - 4. "Skew It on the Bar-B" (feat. Raekwon) - 5. "Aquemini" - 8. "West Savannah" - 11. "Mamacita" - 12. "SpottieOttieDopaliscious" - 15. "Liberation"
3rd studio album by Outkast is an album controlled more by the duo of André Benjamin and Antwan Patton as primary producers and as arrangers of album concept and songs, which has been recorded with a wide range of featuring artists, who has also had influence on the writing process.
Stylistically, the duo experiments more with its style and incorporates all sorts of instruments on an album that maybe referred to as southern hip hop and conscious hip hop but also pays more attention on neo-soul than previously.
I didn't get to listen to the album before discovering their perhaps most wide-spread success with Speakerboxxx / The Love Below from 2003 and the acclaimed follow-up to this one, Stankonia from 2000, but I simply feel that "Aquemini" is the duo's best and best balanced album ever. Speakerboxxx... is the bolder move into popular music with its fusion of contemporary r&b, neo-soul and hip hop but also points in so many directions that you had absolutely no idea of where they'd go from there on. On the 2000 album they try to be more hardcore, but in essence that is also a fine album, though.
Recommendable.
[ allmusic.com, Q Magazine 5 / 5, Spin 4,5 / 5, Uncut, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]
