Throwbacks: Outkast - Idlewild

When your final bow as a duo is a 25-track, hour-and-eighteen-minute soundtrack to your own period-piece musical, you’ve officially left the stratosphere. Released on August 22, 2006, via LaFace Records, *Idlewild* stands as OutKast’s sixth and final studio album. It debuted at number two on the Billboard charts, but hip-hop history often treats this project like a strange footnote. That is a massive mistake.

Dre and Big Boi swerved directly into jazz, blues, swing, and soul. You hear the ambition immediately on "Mighty 'O'," where Dave Robbins' bass walks right under the Dungeon Family's backing vocals. Then there's "Morris Brown," anchored by Sleepy Brown and Scar, proving Big Boi could still march a marching band straight through a trunk-rattling Southern rap beat. They brought Khujo Goodie in for "N2U" and let the acoustic blues bleed out on "Idlewild Blue (Don'tchu Worry 'Bout Me)." *Idlewild* is a dense, sprawling listen. It’s the sound of two visionaries pushing their boundaries so far out that they eventually had to go their separate ways. It remains a messy, brilliant curtain call. Check it out below.