ATLiens

ATLiens Redux Review
This album just kept growing on me.
________________________

ATLiens is the sophomore album of legendary hip-hop duo, OutKast, and god damn is it a great one. Following up the classic southern debut of Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, OutKast dials everything up to 11. The production on this album is incredibly spacey and atmospheric while the rapping is on point, exploring themes like identity/being different, spirituality, social pressure, all while utilising diverse flows. This is the hip-hop OutKast album with pure rapping with Aquemini and Stankonia leaning into different genres like neo-soul, rock, gospel, funk, etc. and Speakerboxxx not being on the same level as this. The Love Below? Uhhhh, not hip-hop.

While I do believe the intro: You May Die should've been longer, it sets the style and theme of the album perfectly, setting up an incredible 5 song run of Two Dope Boys, ATLiens, Wheelz Of Steel, Jazzy Belle and Elevators, all with amazing beats, flows and hooks. Ova da Wudz is a slight dip in quality, but it recovers incredibly with Babylon, possibly the most underrated song in their whole catalogue.

I've been lowkey glazing a bit but the main drawback of this album is the dip in quality in the second half. Its not a dip like Ova da Wudz, its a dip below that. The songs aren't terrible, in fact, many of the songs are great on their own, but in a tracklist like this, they stand out, especially when the tracklist from You May Die to Babylon was on track to be better than Aquemini. Unfortunately, they don't regain that level of quality until 13th Floor/Growing Old.

Overall, ATLiens is an amazing follow up to their debut, and while they would top this album multiple times. A main reason why its my favourite is the fact that there isn't a clear 'better' rapper on each album. Big Boi and Andre 3000 truly feel on the same level unlike Andre being a god on Aquemini or straying off outside hip-hop.