Welcome back to hip parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about

the hits from Coast to Coast.

I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song No.

1 series.

In our last episode, we covered the first decade of the career of Outcast, the duo of Antoine

Bigboy Patton, and Andre 3000 Benjamin, their emergence as teenage hit makers, their upset

win at the 1995 Source Awards, and Andre's prophetic speech at that show, Claiming Rap

for the South.

We're now up to the turn of the millennium, and Southern hip hop is now so successful,

Outcast begin thinking bigger, even beyond the boundaries of rap.

Over in Atlanta, Andre and Bigboy knew they needed to up their game, so in 2000, they

went back into the studio and emerged with a new benchmark for speed.

B-O-B, Bombs Over Baghdad, has been acclaimed as one of the most dazzling singles in

rap history.

Running at a frenetic 155 beats per minute, the song was Outcast's attempt to synthesize

the rhythms of the British dance music known as Drum and Bass, which had been blasting

in UK clubs throughout the second half of the 1990s.

That made B-O-B perhaps the most exceptional Outcast single.

The famously laid back hip hop duo were suddenly rapping like they had mainlined extra

strength Red Bull.

Critics called it Seminole and prophetic.

The village voice dubbed it, quote, just about the damnedest bass track ever, an electro

...