Urban Thought Collective

The greatest rap group of all time is……THAT KAST! I imagine my choice will be popular with some, irrationally unpopular with others, and cause everyone else to have a massive bout of indifference. At any rate, they are my choice and I’m sticking with it. By my rating scale, they have released three 5-mic albums and two 4-mic albums. Umm…yeah…that’s a little thing we like to call consistent greatness. Michael Jordan thinks that run of quality is egregious. So please feel free to discuss in the comments. Just know that if you oppose me, you better have a more effective retort than “Uh uh. No they not.” Lol On to the videos!

“PLAYER’S BALL”
“Forever pimpin’. Never slippin’. That’s how it is.” Boy, have they changed or what?!? Never slippin’? No doubt. Forever pimpin’? Umm…not so much. But who cares? This song kicks all kinds of arse. To say we played this a lot in 12th grade, is like saying LeBron is a decent player. Who knew what these cats would eventually turn into?

“BENZ OR BEAMER”
“Deep in the dungeon for these many months. Amongst the dungeon dragons as we passing ‘round them blunts. Had to cut it out, like cheers, but for years used to burn ‘em. Getting deep off in my thoughts, just to get sh*t of my sternum.” That boy cold.

“ELEVATORS”
“Facial expression looking silly.” My first cousin is the person that introduced me to every vice I currently have. I won’t name them all, but it’s an impressive list. Anyway, we used to go to strip clubs like every week and have a good time. We went to Scruples one night, and everything was cool until a cat got thrown out for…I have no idea. I just know they threw him out and he was unhappy about it. Well about two minutes after he was kicked out, dude kicked the front door open and busted in waving a gun. I have never seen so many black people move so quickly, in such a short amount of a time in my life. My heart was in my throat and I was sweating like Ruben Studdard getting out of bed. Long story short[Too late. I know] no one was injured or killed and we got home safely. Now, what does this have to do with Elevators? That night, I saw this video for the first time. I was so happy, I wasn’t even sweating my near death experience. Outkast heals, people. They heal.

“ROSA PARKS”
“Still I find the time to put that bump off in yo eye.” Purchase Aquemeni or that new Pimp Tricc Gangsta Click? A tough decision to make in ’98, for sure. Thankfully, I went with Aquemini. Also, thankfully I went to Morehouse’s Homecoming concert that year. ‘Kast put on a hellified show. At one point, Dre implored us to “keep the crunkness to a minimum.” Yeah, bout that…no. During the “hoe down” part, we had that stadium rocking like Red Hot Chili Peppers Concert. Pure madness. I miss being 22 and not giving a damn.

“SO FRESH, SO CLEAN”
“Let’s hit the attic to hideout for ‘bout two weeks.” When this song came on in the club, typically there was a mad stampede to the dance floor. Hopefully, you were lucky enough to hook a PYT’s arm as she hit 5th gear going past you. After that, who knows? Maybe you latched on, danced for a minute, bought her a drink, danced some more, bought some more drinks, went out the next weekend, then the next, then the one after that, then maybe six months later you two got married, and had 2.3 kids. And it was all due to Outkast. Outkast brings people together, folks. Love. Connection.

Diallo Tyson is a filmmaker, writer, beat miner, [self-proclaimed] comedian, and old school music junkie. In his spare time, he contributes to the music blog, Finessed & Blessed and is a collaborator for the sports/pop culture blog The Commission. He can be reached at ddog_tap@hotmail.com. Step into a groovin’ time machine every other Monday on UTC.