In celebration of OutKast‘s fourth studio album, Stankonia‘s 15-year anniversary, MTV released a mini-documentary featuring never before seen OutKast interviews from 2000 and new interviews from Big Boi, CeeLo Green, TIP, Father and Wale among others reflecting on the impact Stankonia had on the music industry.
Since its release,Stankonia has sold more than 4 million copies to date while becoming certified quadruple-platinum and winning the Best Rap Album at the Grammy’s in 2002.
The duo also attained the Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for their Stankonia cut, “Ms. Jackson.”
“When I first heard Stankonia I remember thinking ‘Man, music is going to a real, far out place’,” recalls TIP.
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“Stankonia was just…they can do it again,” he continues. “Just kind of like man these are the Rolling Stones. They are going to do this shit forever.”
OutKast’s Rap peers have praised the duo with breaking down barriers within Hip Hop and named Andre 3000 and Big Boi as “mavericks” in the game.
Atlanta rapper Father even credits Andre as the person who opened the gates for other rappers such as Young Thug to be himself.
“No doubt about it,” says CeeLo. “They should be acknowledged. Threatening. Threateningly talented individuals.”
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Elsewhere in the mini-documentary, in an unreleased clip from 2000, 3 stacks recalls the first time they visited the studio they recorded Stankonia in, now named after the Grammy-winning album.
“This was like the first real studio we came to,” recalls Andre 3K of their first visit to Stankonia Recording Studios. “When we first came here our mouth was open like, ‘Oh man. Look at this.’ We was tripping.”
Big Boi also details how they ended up buying it from Bobby Brown.
“When it was owned by Bobby Brown we used to camp out outside,” says Big Boi. “We was just waiting days at a time for Bobby Brown to come and he never came. We saw him at a show in North Carolina and we was like, ‘Yeah we like the studio,’ and he was like you can have the studio. So we bought it out of foreclosure after Aquemini.”
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The full MTVStankonia 15-year anniversary mini-doc is as follows:
