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Known in Georgia as DJ Unk, Anthony Platt began spinning records in 1998. “Sixteen”-Rick Ross Feat.Atlanta DJ and rapper Unk entered the spotlight in 2006 with the hit single "Walk It Out." Under the guidance of Atlanta underground impresario Big Oomp, he turned the local Atlanta hit into a national one, enjoying rotation on MTV2 and BET as well as some radio outlets around the country. Check out the accompanying Spotify playlist and just remember: If it don’t move your feet, then I don’t eat, so we like neck to neck. With no proper Outkast reunion album or official André solo project in sight, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to sift through Three Stacks’ ATL collabs, R&B duets, and strange pop dalliances in order to assemble the Platonic ideal of a modern André 3000 record. If Dré had gone radio silent after Outkast ended, the group would still be legendary, but it’s André’s amazingly consistent feature run that’s catapulted him into the “GOAT rapper” discussion. There is little discernible coherence to why or how André picks his features, other than the sense that he likes to experiment far afield of traditional rap but then regularly remind everyone that he is very, very good at traditional rap. He has taken to them as his primary form of expression over the last decade, appearing on everything from a grimy trap song to a glossy track starring Kesha. Instead of keeping Dré in top form for another Outkast album, these features seem to have satisfied his need for creative output. He was the most curmudgeonly 31-year-old on the planet, dismissing tall T’s as night gowns on DJ Unk’s “Walk It Out (Remix),” berating music pirates on Devin the Dude’s “What a Job,” and awkwardly romancing a Whole Foods cashier on Lloyd’s “You (Remix).” For the first time in years, André was rapping his ass off, with a talent that came so naturally to him that he had temporarily grown bored with it. His 2007 feature run, then, was a revelation. But by the time Idlewild had come and gone, André had spent most of the 2000s trying to match Prince, Jimi Hendrix, and Stevie Wonder rather than Eric B and Rakim. Three Stacks’ malleable flow, nasally twang, and cerebral shit talk made him a prime candidate to be a memorable feature-killer he had already spent an entire early career trying to one-up his partner on every track, and more broadly fighting to prove Outkast’s place in a hip-hop pantheon that still idolized coastal artists. No wonder the final song we are likely to ever hear on an official Outkast studio album is called “A Bad Note.”īut from the ashes of Idlewild rose the phoenix of post-Outkast André 3000. While that musical project did gift us “Mighty O,” “Chronomentrophobia,” and Janelle Monáe, its damage to the increasingly strained creative relationship between Big Boi and Dre was irreparable.
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Idlewild, the album, was a confused mess that was neither the traditional funk-infused Outkast album Big Boi wanted to make nor the experimental modern blues album André 3000 wanted to make, and therefore is rarely spoken of. Idlewild, the movie, was a confused mess that was neither good nor so-bad-it’s-good, and therefore is rarely spoken of. On, August 25, 2006, three days after the group’s sixth LP, Idlewild, dropped, their Depression-era speakeasy musical was released (’Kast had a lot of leeway after Speakerboxxx/The Love Below). It’s been 11 years to the day since the beginning of the end of Outkast. In the words of two great Southerners, nothin’ is for sure, nothin’ is for certain, nothin’ lasts forever. We’re also ranking the best Southern rap albums, imagining the André 3000 mixtape we all deserve, and arguing about what even constitutes the South anymore. You’ll find stories from all over the map, exploring topics such as the enduring legacy of Confederate monuments in Richmond and Montgomery, the evolution of Charleston barbecue, and the intersection of faith and football in Lubbock. For the next several days, we’re celebrating - and reporting on - the richness of the region.