While I was shoving sunflower seeds up my nose at nursery, Outkast were seeing in the 21st century with a winningly eclectic, expansive set of songs. This is the second album of theirs I’ve listened to in full: a couple of years ago, “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” blew me away when I heard it. While heavy and bloated, the volume of innovation and ideas being launched at the wall was overwhelming, and it’s fast become one of my favourite hip-hop albums on the list. "Stankonia" was its immediate precursor, and showcases more than I’d expected of Outkast's genre diversity, experimentation and restless energy.  In making this record, the duo turned away from hip-hop as inspiration, feeling it was beginning to stagnate. Instead, the aim of "Stankonia" was to balance retro influences - Prince, Hendrix, Little Richard, Parliament-Funkadelic - with progressive sound. You could argue this is hardly unusual for hip-hop (Dr. Dre, NWA,  Beastie Boys and more had pulled from the same sources). But as far as I’ve heard, Outkast stand alone in combining wild experimentation with the ability to craft crossover-pop smash hits. There’s an urgency and a vitality to the best songs here: “Gasoline Dreams”, “Xplosion”, the pleading throughout the iconic “Ms. Jackson”. All of them are bombastic and explosive, with a genre-spanning set of samples and sounds, from harpsichord to guitar, bells, organ and an ultra phat bass. Hear it and weep. Features abound from names including Killer Mike, Gangsta Boo, Cee-Lo Green, and Cypress Hill's nasal king B-Real. All of have distinct voices and personas to help strengthen the variation even more, but the guest who steals the show the most is Erykah Badu in the stand-out track “Humble Mumble”. What a voice. Elsewhere, I really enjoyed the lighter fare like “So Fresh, So Clean”, “I’ll Call B4 I Cum”, “We Luv Deez Hoez”. Once the kind of thing I would have squirmed at and found grating, it’s clear the duo are playing roles and loving it: it’s pantomime hip-hop. As if to prove the gimmicks haven’t become too much, we go harder, no-frills, trap-based with “Spaghetti Junction”, “Snappin & Trappin”, “Gangsta Shit”. And in the final stretch, the songs space out into haze and would-be psychedelia, with mixed results: "Toilet Tisha" is undeniably moving, while “Slum Beautiful” and “Stankonia” verge on outstaying their welcome. Without a doubt, though, the centrepiece of “Stankonia” is the truly incendiary “B.O.B (Bombs Over Baghdad)”. Written to emulate emergent rave music after Andre attended one, it marries a drum-n-bass style breakbeat with a hazy organ, scratchy funk guitar, machine-gun vocals and a singalong backing. It’s a move unlike any other I’ve heard in hip-hop before, and something I can only imagine Outkast pulling off. It was also voted Pitchfork’s song of the decade: however much stock you may put in such lists or the site itself, it remains an incredible testament to the duo’s mass appeal. All that remains from me is to share this verse of Andre 3000’s from “Humble Mumble”, which has given me much thought on my previous feelings around hip-hop and those who still shut it out on impulse… “I met a critic, I made her shit her drawers She said she thought hip-hop was only guns and alcohol I said, "Oh hell, nah", but yet it's that too You can't discrimi-hate 'cause you done read a book or two” Touche, Andre, touche.