"The Making of Aquemini" in Creative Loafing

The homie Rodney Charmichael penned a piece in Creative Loafing's Music Issue that I wish I could've wrote and been a part of. They tracked down all (or most) of the musicians that played a part in the making of Outkast's Aquemini album. Very interesting stuff that you may have known or never known gets exposed in this piece. Here are some excerpts:

On making "Rosa Parks"

Andre 3000: I actually submitted that beat to [Diddy’s old group] Total — ’cause I was going with Keisha from Total around that time — but they couldn’t use it, so we ended up using it.

On making "Skew It On the Bar-B"

Raekwon: I was in Atlanta ’cause I had a nice place out there in Buckhead, and I met Big Boi in Lenox Square Mall. He seemed like a cool, genuine dude, and we both were fans of each other's work. We both were like, “Yo, let's get up and do something.” Two or three days later I went to the Dungeon house and we started running through some beats.

On making "Liberation"

Kawan Prather: Yeah, that [song featured] Erykah, Big Rube, Cee-Lo — again random occurrences. Dre’s baby mama was Erykah Badu. I mean, damn, why wouldn’t you put your baby mama on the record if she’s Erykah Badu? It’s not like he came to the studio and said, ‘I want to put my girl on the song,’ and this bitch work at the Varsity. She’s Erykah Badu. Okay, do it.

This story is great, hats off to Rodney, Jacinta Howard and Phillip Mlynar for pulling this off. I pitched a similar idea to XXL about 5 years ago but was never quite able to pull all the pieces together. I wanted to see a 'Kast album get the same shine they gave Raekwon's Built 4 Cuban Linx and Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt when they did their Classic Material column in long form.

Would've loved to have been a part of this piece, but I was pretty swamped with other stuff at the time. Anyways, check it out, I'm sure you'll enjoy. Luda is on the actual cover of the issue in case you wanted to know.

READ: "The Making of Aquemini" in Creative Loafing