Happy 25th Birthday To The OutKast Album ATLiens

One of the greatest hip hop albums of all time turns twenty five today.

On this day twenty five years ago, a fifty seven minute and twenty three second masterpiece was released by the duo of Big Boi and Andre 3000 called ATLiens, and it changed the landscape of OutKasts success and the way Atlanta hip hop blew up.

ATLiens is my favorite album the duo ever dropped and I would have to guess that many other OutKast fans would say the same.

The fifteen song project was recorded over 1995 and 1996 and released on August 27th of 1996. The album has three songs that were also released as singles, two prior to the release and one after.

“Elevators (Me & You)” dropped on July 9th of 1996 and “ATLiens”, the song, dropped ten days prior to the album release on August 17th. In December of 1996, the group dropped “Jazzy Belle”, the fifth song on the album as a single.

ATLiens was the first song I ever heard from OutKast and it sent me down an OutKast rabbit hole so it holds a special spot in my heart when I think of the Atlanta duo.

Every time I hear “And if you like fish and grits and all that pimp shit, Then everybody let me hear you say O-Yea-yer” I get fired up.

While Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik was OutKasts first studio album and reached twentieth on the U.S. Charts and second on the R&B Charts. ATLiens was a huge breakthrough for OutKast as ATLiens reached second on the U.S. Charts and was crowned first on the R&B Charts.

The only other albums to chart better than or equal to ATLiens was Speakerboxxx/The Love Below when it was first on both and Idlewild when it hit first on the R&B Charts and second on the U.S. Charts.

ATLiens didn’t get all love though. The Hartford Courant wrote that the album loses its “alien” feel halfway through the album and has “southern mumble in the lyrics”.

All in all, this album is regarded by many hip hop historians as the groups greatest album and it was a trailblazing album for Atlanta and helped other artists like 21 Savage, T.I., and Ludacris break out.