Rap fans know Andre can rap, and rap fans know his skills of old from “Player’s Ball” all the way up to and through “The Whole World.” They know he can speed it up like Twista, slow it down like Too $hort, and his wordplay puts even lyrically ambidextrous rappers like Aceyalone and Gift of Gab to shame. In all honesty, even though Andre does not embarass himself at all as a crooner (something of a modern day George Clinton), this might have been better served as a side project outside OutKast.
Whether hip-hop fans will love it is less clear. This song also clarifies the theme of Andre’s disc a bit when he utters this admonition: “There’s all this talk about Santa Clause, but see, love will rule supreme!” He has a lot of different kinds of love on this album though – commitment love, one night stand love, and straight up booty call can’t-unzip-my-pants-fast-enough love. It’s here that we discover his album’s artwork has additional meaning beyond the bizarre:ĬUPID GRABS THE PISTOL! Ahh, yeah, now, now look-a-here “Happy Valentine’s Day” introduces us to one of his many alter egoes, Cupid Valentino (the modern day Cupid). On “Love Hater,” his falsetto could put Pharrell to shame. On the intro, he hums to a softly played piano like the black Frank Sinatra. To his credit, Andre does sing with joie de vivre. This is not the exception for “The Love Below,” it’s the rule. “She Lives in My Lap” was one of the first songs leaked off the disc, and aside from some scratched in hip-hop samples one could easily miss the fact it was a rap song altogether. Left to his own devices on “The Love Below,” Andre seems to have foresaken his formidable lyrical and vocal rap abilities for crooning altogether. Andre has always had a little bit of R&B in him, singing hooks and once in a while spitting harmony instead of rhymes. Confusing? Not as much so as listening to “The Love Below” first. Packaged inside the compact disc you’ll find Andre 3000’s “The Love Below” on the top of a fold out tray and Big Boi’s “Speakerboxxx” underneath, although Big Boi’s cover art is on the “top side” and Andre’s smoking pink pistol underneath. That’s why “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” is such a curious concept – splitting up a team that works so well together and having them record two seperate albums. You can dance to it, get krunk to it, meditate to it or just plain think on it – they work on all levels. The only predictable thing about OutKast was that they always worked together to create soulful hip-hop.
In fact when one got used to this dichotomy, they would change the rules of the game just to funk with your head. While Big Boi kept them grounded in the gritty reality of concrete streets, Andre was the self-appointed Funkadelic of the group, descending from the Mothership to shoot rhymes from the hip. OutKast has always drawn it’s strength from the complex interaction between Andre and Big Boi, a hip-hop yin/yang that achieves a beautiful balance. After a greatest hits album and some time off to promote their Aquemini Records and its artists like Killer Mike, OutKast has returned in a big way with “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.” Although Atlanta has a fine hip-hop tradition it can be fairly argued they are the duo that put the city on the map worldwide as a hip-hop mecca – even naming one of their albums “ATLiens.” It was also the first of three consecutive albums widely considered by critics and fans alike to be 4 out of 5 stars or better, followed by “Aquemini” and “Stankonia.” Each time it seemed like the duo had pushed the limits of hip-hop to the max, their next album came even louder, as did Andre 3000’s wardrobe. Andre ‘3000’ Benjamin and Antwan ‘Big Boi’ Patton have a decade of rap’s finest music under the belt. It doesn’t stop the ambitious from creating double albums anyway, and few can be called more ambitious than OutKast.
Approaching a project of this size is never easy for anyone: the artist, the reviewer, or the listener.
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