Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty by Big Boi

Every great rap group has one MC who is-- possibly unfairly-- perceived to be slightly lesser than the other. DMC. Parrish Smith. Malice. Pimp C, at least up until he died. Big Boi's been on that list ever since André Benjamin started rocking pith helmets and neckerchiefs. Big Boi's not underrated, exactly; everyone who knows rap knows he's a great rapper. It's more that he's taken for granted. Virtually every OutKast review of the past decade and a half has posited Big Boi as the earthy, street-level anchor to André's spaced-out visionary, the guy responsible for securing the group's cred when André was trying to invent new colors. Expect Sir Lucious Left Foot to change those conversations. We haven't heard a major-label rap album this inventive, bizarre, joyous, and masterful in a long time, and it's almost impossible to imagine André putting out a solo album this strong anytime soon.

Detroit owes the dirty south. For, as Detroit's slump has hit the headlines, the Dirty South has hit a very different kind of headline: a movement of new hip hop artists, spearheaded by the inimitable L'il Wayne, has renewed airtime given to one of Detroit's finest and most American exports: the Cadillac. As more than one hip hop blog has announced: this Southern shit is getting out of hand.

The road to Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty was long, arduous, and mercilessly convoluted. By now, you’ve likely read all about its knotty development, so I’ll spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say it involved four years, multiple record labels, and a whole lot of gritty resolve. It’s a wonder this thing has arrived at all. More wondrous, though, is how uncomplicated the damn thing sounds, given its shaky existence. Instead of muddling its focus, the time and effort spent tooling and retooling the album has imbued it with a wild-eyed precision. News flash: Antwan Patton is a secret perfectionist. He’s gotta be. Only someone willing to devote his entire self and soul to a project could feasibly churn out something with such mind-boggling attention to detail.

That brilliant title is certainly a good start. Such inventive use of language immediately undercuts the argument that Antwan Patton has always been the lesser half of OutKast.

Eminem can rap about recovery and Drake can rap about the pitfalls of newfound fame. Each can eloquently argue, with mind numbing flow and envy inducing wordplay, about how tough things have been for them. They might even be right, but there isn’t an MC in history that has had it as tough as Big Boi.