Da Art of Storytellin’ (A Prequel)
November 13, 2025 at 10:54PMTo commemorate Outkast’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Oxford American resurfaced this decade-old essay, in which Kiese Laymon talks about some of the ways the Atlanta duo changed his creative trajectory. (No shortage of people would credit André and Big Boi with doing the same for them.) But this is more than just a love letter to ATLiens and Aquemini, the albums on which Outkast transformed into an Afrofuturist force for the ages; it’s also a meditation on the world that birthed them. Stankonia didn’t come from nowhere, after all.
By the end of the day, when the two-tone blue Impala crept back into the driveway on the side of our shotgun house, I’d run out to welcome Grandmama home. “Hey baby,” she’d say. “Let me wash this stank off my hands before I hug your neck.”
This stank wasn’t that stink. This stank was root and residue of black Southern poverty, and devalued black Southern labor, black Southern excellence, black Southern imagination, and black Southern woman magic. This was the stank from whence black Southern life, love, and labor came.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/11/13/da-art-of-storytellin-a-prequel/
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