mr. blackpowerman
New member
"Skew It On the Bar-B" feat. Raekwon
Produced by Organized Noize
The track that likely made East Coast-centric magazine The Source wet itself, it featured Wu-Tang Clan's resident dope boy Raekwon the Chef, making him OutKast's first non-Dungeon Family feature.
Raekwon: I was in Atlanta 'cause I had a nice place out there in Buckhead, and I met Big Boi in Lenox Square Mall. He seemed like a cool, genuine dude, and we both were fans of each other's work. We both were like, "Yo, let's get up and do something." Two or three days later I went to the Dungeon house and we started running through some beats.
Kawan Prather (former LaFace A&R): Big was there writing his verse and it was just like how the interlude on the album sounds. There was Hennessy, there was some other stuff, and everybody just kicked it for a minute and it just worked out. The majority of what happened in the Organized [Noize] camp was just random. Like, "Hey man, I just ran into George Clinton." But it was random based on the circle of people that we were, who we were attracted to, and who was attracted to us.
Rico Wade: Dre was fucking with Erykah Badu, too. 'Cause I just remember us having a lot of work going on where we were like, "Yo man, OutKast just needs to come to the studio and we're just going to play ya'll some stuff. Y'all tell us what y'all like." I remember Erykah being in there with them. That "Skew It On the Bar-B" beat came on and everybody was like, "That's it."
Ray [Murray] killed it. I remember that snare and that kick, we kept wanting to use it over and over again. Its like it made history: the "Skew It" snare. Other motherfuckers have used it, sampled it. That's hip-hop. People know they go right in there and sample those drum sounds. And Ray says it was a play off of a "Wonder Woman" [TV show] sample.
Big Boi: That was the first time I had ever been in the booth with a nigga when he was rapping. Rae was about to do his verse, and he was like, "C'mon god, get in the booth." I'm like, "Get in the booth with you?" He said, "Man, that's how we do it. Let me get that energy, come in here with me." So he was doing his verse, and we were just passing the Hennessy back and forth. The cup was spilling shit, nigga's necklace was dangling - that's what you hear, like cling-cling and all kinda shit. There was so much liquor spilled in the booth from him just doing his verse.
Raekwon: We were just having fun, talking about real shit. And they know one thing about me, which is the way I talk and have conversations. So they were like, "Just go in the booth and do whatever you wanna do." So I went in there and did that and they used that [interlude] on the record.
When that record came to New York City, it opened up the floodgates for the South to emerge and do their thing. The South was not being played up in New York at all at that time. Me and OutKast, we definitely opened up that door.
"Aquemini"
Produced by OutKast for Earthtone
A three-dimensional aural massage with a mystical hook that gave cause to question everything you ever thought you believed and to believe nothing you never thought to question
Mr. DJ: On the album before Aquemini, me and Dre grew dreads. We went to Jamaica one time and took our cornrows out and we swam in the ocean, and we decided we were never going to comb our hair again.
After having dreads you realize how people discriminate against you just because of the way you look. Towards the end, around the time we got ready to do this album, we just cut our dreads off. So that's what Dre was referring to when he says: 'Is every nigga with dreads for the cause?/Is every nigga with golds for the fall?" He's just explaining that you can't judge a book by its cover.
Andre 3000: I was a young man searching, a young black man, so I was looking into Rastafarianism, Islam, whatever. I started to notice that all the stories were similar, it was more about a mutual respect and exchange of energy. When you rap and say anything kinda conscious, all the conscious people approach you. So after ATLiens I got it all - from books on sex to [metaphysics] and religion. But you also get introduced to a lot of fake phony ass people, and I addressed it in the song. You find some of the fakest people with dreads pouring oils on you. And it's really kind of mind-blowing when you're a young person and you start to find out some of this is bullshit, so then you're just out there searching.
Big Boi: 'Aquemini' was just the meshing of both worlds, with me being an Aquarius and him being a Gemini. It was subtle on ATLiens, but by the time we got to Aquemini it was like we had two different visions that were [parallel]. So the thing with us was to always show the team.
Preston Crump (bass player): Dre was very experimental. He wanted you to bring in all the stuff you've got and I'd be like, "Yo, I ain't bringing all that stuff in the studio." He'd say, "You got some more effects?" But it was cool, I understand where he was trying to go.
Andre 3000: My biggest [instrument] is my mouth. I'd just lean over to Preston and say: ba-boom, ba-boom. And he'd just kinda go in on it and freak it and make it his own. There's always some improvisation [involved] 'cause I ask for it. I want them to take my idea and make it better. I can't play it [and] at the time I couldn't create it. They're accomplished musicians so you want them around. They bring good ideas.
Mr. DJ: [Me and] Dre started learning how to produce together. We would sit around and watch Rico and Ray all the time, and it was just the coolest shit to see them with the cigarette hanging out one hand and just going in on the beat machine - that was an art in itself, not to mention what came out of the machine.
More than knowing what we were doing, we were just imitating what they were doing. We got the same equipment and we were on the road traveling. We eventually learned what we were doing, but for the most part, we were just going through the motions and trying to do what they were doing and finally learned how to start producing. Dre got really into it. Dre doesn't spend a lot of money on a lot of stuff, but Dre spent a lot of money on music equipment.
Omar Phillips (percussionist): Of course, back then we had the kind of budgets where we could really just live at Doppler Studios. It was just eat, live, sleep, music. We started recording around 8 p.m. and we would come out of the studio at like 6 or 7 in the morning. We were all set up at the same time, which is another great thing about those tracks. There was very little overdub involved. What you hear is what we were hearing. We all tracked at the same time, old-school.
Neal H. Pogue: That was the beauty of making all those records - having musicians come in and out. It was almost like a Motown, that's what we had. Or like a Stax Records thing. That's what I loved about it. It brought back that whole feeling of making records. It was organic.
That was one of my favorite mixes because when Dre says, "It's him and I/ Aquemini" and there's a delay, I wanted to make sure that was a statement. So I put that delay on there just to make it bigger. I always wanted it to come across like it was dimensional, like you could actually put your hands through the song.
"Synthesizer" feat. George Clinton
Produced by OutKast for Earthtone
While George Clinton oodles verbal noodles at virtual reality ("Said she'd lap dance on your laptop while your laptop's in your lap"), Dre paints a vivid picture of humankind's crippling addiction to technology over a synth-heavy track and organic finger snaps - thereby proving all things futuristic ain't always funky.
Andre 3000: I remember some image of you being able to put a helmet on and go places that you couldn't before. It was just crazy that things that were fiction had really become science-faction, like they could really happen. I guess [the song] was a warning. I was just putting it out there.
Was that the first song I sung on? I don't know if it was that song or another where my voice was auto-pitched. The first time I did it, [Big] kinda pulled me to the side and said, 'I just wanna let you know niggas in the street, they don't be liking when you do your voice like that.' But to me, in my head, I was like it sounds cool. Maybe I'm not transmitting it right but this is cool. So that really kinda gave me a push and I think my songwriting abilities were pushed in that way.
Mr. DJ: I can remember George Clinton being in the same studio and being in the booth. Getting to the funk. He'd go into his world and just get down. It sounds like he doesn't know what he's talking about, but if you listen back he totally understands what he's saying and its meaning. That's another song that I just really started to understand, including the George Clinton parts.
Andre 3000: Sometimes I'm just as surprised by some of this stuff as other people are. I'm not that talented. That shit was just meant to be. That's why music is real religious in that sense to me. 'Cause I get that feeling like when I used to go to church and people would start to jumping and acting crazy - at least the churches I went to - and when I get that feeling, that's when I know God is in the house.
Neal H. Pogue: That was way before its time. Just the whole vibe of "Synthesizer," the sound of the song, like it was almost into electronica in a way. 'Cause at that time I thought it was way different. I didn't understand it at first, but after awhile I was like, 'Ok, this is cool.'
Andre 3000: I'm so not in the world that I didn't know Vincent Price had passed. I was going to have him on there. But that may have been too "Thriller." [George Clinton] came in and it took him awhile to get into his zone, but he put it down. And that's what I'm talking about when I say God is in the building.
Produced by Organized Noize
The track that likely made East Coast-centric magazine The Source wet itself, it featured Wu-Tang Clan's resident dope boy Raekwon the Chef, making him OutKast's first non-Dungeon Family feature.
Raekwon: I was in Atlanta 'cause I had a nice place out there in Buckhead, and I met Big Boi in Lenox Square Mall. He seemed like a cool, genuine dude, and we both were fans of each other's work. We both were like, "Yo, let's get up and do something." Two or three days later I went to the Dungeon house and we started running through some beats.
Kawan Prather (former LaFace A&R): Big was there writing his verse and it was just like how the interlude on the album sounds. There was Hennessy, there was some other stuff, and everybody just kicked it for a minute and it just worked out. The majority of what happened in the Organized [Noize] camp was just random. Like, "Hey man, I just ran into George Clinton." But it was random based on the circle of people that we were, who we were attracted to, and who was attracted to us.
Rico Wade: Dre was fucking with Erykah Badu, too. 'Cause I just remember us having a lot of work going on where we were like, "Yo man, OutKast just needs to come to the studio and we're just going to play ya'll some stuff. Y'all tell us what y'all like." I remember Erykah being in there with them. That "Skew It On the Bar-B" beat came on and everybody was like, "That's it."
Ray [Murray] killed it. I remember that snare and that kick, we kept wanting to use it over and over again. Its like it made history: the "Skew It" snare. Other motherfuckers have used it, sampled it. That's hip-hop. People know they go right in there and sample those drum sounds. And Ray says it was a play off of a "Wonder Woman" [TV show] sample.
Big Boi: That was the first time I had ever been in the booth with a nigga when he was rapping. Rae was about to do his verse, and he was like, "C'mon god, get in the booth." I'm like, "Get in the booth with you?" He said, "Man, that's how we do it. Let me get that energy, come in here with me." So he was doing his verse, and we were just passing the Hennessy back and forth. The cup was spilling shit, nigga's necklace was dangling - that's what you hear, like cling-cling and all kinda shit. There was so much liquor spilled in the booth from him just doing his verse.
Raekwon: We were just having fun, talking about real shit. And they know one thing about me, which is the way I talk and have conversations. So they were like, "Just go in the booth and do whatever you wanna do." So I went in there and did that and they used that [interlude] on the record.
When that record came to New York City, it opened up the floodgates for the South to emerge and do their thing. The South was not being played up in New York at all at that time. Me and OutKast, we definitely opened up that door.
"Aquemini"
Produced by OutKast for Earthtone
A three-dimensional aural massage with a mystical hook that gave cause to question everything you ever thought you believed and to believe nothing you never thought to question
Mr. DJ: On the album before Aquemini, me and Dre grew dreads. We went to Jamaica one time and took our cornrows out and we swam in the ocean, and we decided we were never going to comb our hair again.
After having dreads you realize how people discriminate against you just because of the way you look. Towards the end, around the time we got ready to do this album, we just cut our dreads off. So that's what Dre was referring to when he says: 'Is every nigga with dreads for the cause?/Is every nigga with golds for the fall?" He's just explaining that you can't judge a book by its cover.
Andre 3000: I was a young man searching, a young black man, so I was looking into Rastafarianism, Islam, whatever. I started to notice that all the stories were similar, it was more about a mutual respect and exchange of energy. When you rap and say anything kinda conscious, all the conscious people approach you. So after ATLiens I got it all - from books on sex to [metaphysics] and religion. But you also get introduced to a lot of fake phony ass people, and I addressed it in the song. You find some of the fakest people with dreads pouring oils on you. And it's really kind of mind-blowing when you're a young person and you start to find out some of this is bullshit, so then you're just out there searching.
Big Boi: 'Aquemini' was just the meshing of both worlds, with me being an Aquarius and him being a Gemini. It was subtle on ATLiens, but by the time we got to Aquemini it was like we had two different visions that were [parallel]. So the thing with us was to always show the team.
Preston Crump (bass player): Dre was very experimental. He wanted you to bring in all the stuff you've got and I'd be like, "Yo, I ain't bringing all that stuff in the studio." He'd say, "You got some more effects?" But it was cool, I understand where he was trying to go.
Andre 3000: My biggest [instrument] is my mouth. I'd just lean over to Preston and say: ba-boom, ba-boom. And he'd just kinda go in on it and freak it and make it his own. There's always some improvisation [involved] 'cause I ask for it. I want them to take my idea and make it better. I can't play it [and] at the time I couldn't create it. They're accomplished musicians so you want them around. They bring good ideas.
Mr. DJ: [Me and] Dre started learning how to produce together. We would sit around and watch Rico and Ray all the time, and it was just the coolest shit to see them with the cigarette hanging out one hand and just going in on the beat machine - that was an art in itself, not to mention what came out of the machine.
More than knowing what we were doing, we were just imitating what they were doing. We got the same equipment and we were on the road traveling. We eventually learned what we were doing, but for the most part, we were just going through the motions and trying to do what they were doing and finally learned how to start producing. Dre got really into it. Dre doesn't spend a lot of money on a lot of stuff, but Dre spent a lot of money on music equipment.
Omar Phillips (percussionist): Of course, back then we had the kind of budgets where we could really just live at Doppler Studios. It was just eat, live, sleep, music. We started recording around 8 p.m. and we would come out of the studio at like 6 or 7 in the morning. We were all set up at the same time, which is another great thing about those tracks. There was very little overdub involved. What you hear is what we were hearing. We all tracked at the same time, old-school.
Neal H. Pogue: That was the beauty of making all those records - having musicians come in and out. It was almost like a Motown, that's what we had. Or like a Stax Records thing. That's what I loved about it. It brought back that whole feeling of making records. It was organic.
That was one of my favorite mixes because when Dre says, "It's him and I/ Aquemini" and there's a delay, I wanted to make sure that was a statement. So I put that delay on there just to make it bigger. I always wanted it to come across like it was dimensional, like you could actually put your hands through the song.
"Synthesizer" feat. George Clinton
Produced by OutKast for Earthtone
While George Clinton oodles verbal noodles at virtual reality ("Said she'd lap dance on your laptop while your laptop's in your lap"), Dre paints a vivid picture of humankind's crippling addiction to technology over a synth-heavy track and organic finger snaps - thereby proving all things futuristic ain't always funky.
Andre 3000: I remember some image of you being able to put a helmet on and go places that you couldn't before. It was just crazy that things that were fiction had really become science-faction, like they could really happen. I guess [the song] was a warning. I was just putting it out there.
Was that the first song I sung on? I don't know if it was that song or another where my voice was auto-pitched. The first time I did it, [Big] kinda pulled me to the side and said, 'I just wanna let you know niggas in the street, they don't be liking when you do your voice like that.' But to me, in my head, I was like it sounds cool. Maybe I'm not transmitting it right but this is cool. So that really kinda gave me a push and I think my songwriting abilities were pushed in that way.
Mr. DJ: I can remember George Clinton being in the same studio and being in the booth. Getting to the funk. He'd go into his world and just get down. It sounds like he doesn't know what he's talking about, but if you listen back he totally understands what he's saying and its meaning. That's another song that I just really started to understand, including the George Clinton parts.
Andre 3000: Sometimes I'm just as surprised by some of this stuff as other people are. I'm not that talented. That shit was just meant to be. That's why music is real religious in that sense to me. 'Cause I get that feeling like when I used to go to church and people would start to jumping and acting crazy - at least the churches I went to - and when I get that feeling, that's when I know God is in the house.
Neal H. Pogue: That was way before its time. Just the whole vibe of "Synthesizer," the sound of the song, like it was almost into electronica in a way. 'Cause at that time I thought it was way different. I didn't understand it at first, but after awhile I was like, 'Ok, this is cool.'
Andre 3000: I'm so not in the world that I didn't know Vincent Price had passed. I was going to have him on there. But that may have been too "Thriller." [George Clinton] came in and it took him awhile to get into his zone, but he put it down. And that's what I'm talking about when I say God is in the building.
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