Top 10 OutKast Songs

The title track from the album that started it all, this southern hip-hop number pretty much exemplifies the tone of the whole record. It’s funky, it’s laidback, and it’s smooth - with plenty of dance-y guitars and verses about what the title implies: the South, players and Cadillacs. Cracking the Billboard Hot 100 chart, this single, and its parent record, helped popularize southern hip-hop as a genre and paved the way for OutKast’s massive career later on.

This song may be less than 3 minutes long, but it’s also one of the best examples of OutKast’s trademark sound. Beginning with an extra-terrestrial-sounding intro, “Two Dope Boyz (In a Cadillac)” has Big Boi and André alternating the verses. As if the Organized Noise-produced song wasn’t crazy enough, it also ends quite unexpectedly with the sound of a gunshot.

This song is both mellow and a little bit eerie, but it’s also totally cool. While it’s not as representative of OutKast’s typical sound, “Elevators” is still the first song that gave them recognition in the mainstream. With its southern and alternative hip hop flavors, the first single from their sophomore effort peaked at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Billboard Hot Rap Track chart.

The beat may be slow, but the rap verses on this track are lightning fast. Not only that, but “Return of the ‘G’” also served as a response to criticism from OutKast’s fans that they were diverging too much from the southern hip hop style of their first album. Throughout the almost-5 minute number, Big Boi and André prove to those old fans that they can still pull off a tougher image while being in touch with their experimental side.

Chaotic. Powerful. In-your-face. There are just too many adjectives to describe this Stankonia single, which takes influence from various different styles and puts them together with rapid-fire verses from Andre and Big Boi. The result is one hell of an alternative hip-hop song. Although it didn’t perform well commercially, “Bombs Over Baghdad” has been celebrated by critics ever since its September 2000 release.

The beat to this banger of a track sounds like it could have been made by extraterrestrial aliens, which is why it was so appropriate for Big Boi and Andre to name both this song and their whole album after it. Though “ATLiens” is also a shout out to their hometown of Atlanta, this hip hop song really does sound like it’s from out of this world; peaking within the Hot 100’s top forty, it also made rap fans all over “throw their hands in the ayer and wave them like they just didn’t care.”

The woman this song was named after may have been pissed off by it, but OutKast’s legions of fans sure weren’t. Aquemini’s first single combined a slamming rap beat with acoustic guitars and a harmonica solo from Andre 3000’s own stepfather. Despite the Rosa Parks lawsuit, the crunk and country rap tune was a top 20 hit on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs chart and remains one of the duo’s greatest tunes.

The video for this hip-hop single was inspired by The Beatles’ performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” and its execution was simply impeccable. As the song appeared on André 3000’s part of the double album, known as The Love Below, he is playing all the musicians here. And the visuals were the perfect counterpart to one of the catchiest and most ubiquitous songs of the 2000s. In no time flat, “Hey Ya!” made people everywhere shake it like a Polaroid picture. It also topped the Hot 100, nabbed a Grammy, and still gets people dancing today.

Not only was this OutKast’s first huge single, it was their first ever number one on the Billboard Hot 100. And it deserved to be: although the Grammy winner was a kind of sad song about divorce, breaking up and apologizing to the mother of your ex – more specifically, the mother of André 3000’s ex Erykah Badu – “Ms. Jackson” was counterbalanced by a bouncy, infectious beat that made heads bob around the world.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
- “Roses”
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003)
- “So Fresh, So Clean”
Stankonia (2000)
- “The Way You Move” feat. Sleepy Brown
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003)
- “Aquemini”
Aquemini (1998)
- “Git Up, Git Out” feat. Goodie Mob
Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (1994)
- “SpottieOttieDopaliscious” feat. Sleepy Brown
Aquemini (1998)

The beat to this song is smooth and infectious, and lyrically, it holds true to its title. With both Big Boi and André 3000 in full storytelling mode, this Aquemini track tells the listener about a dame named Suzy Screw who’s known for her sexual promiscuity and drug addiction, and the duo recalls their own experiences with her. Whether you prefer the single release version featuring Slick Rick, or the album version without, “Da Art of Storytellin’ (Pt. 1)” isn’t only an underrated OutKast song, it’s one of their best too.

Do you agree with our list? Which OutKast track is your all-time favorite? With new Top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.