Published Oct. 3, 2003, in the Kansas State Collegian

Review by Matthew Webber

When bands experience "creative tension," it's often a euphemism for trouble. They squabble about royalty rates and artistic vision. They often break up.

The two members of Outkast, Antwan "Big Boi" Patton and Andre "3000" Benjamin, say they aren't breaking up. What they don't say, and what their new double album implies, is that they don't know how to make music together anymore.

As other critics have written, "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" is hip-hop's "The White Album," a sprawling two-disc set both brilliant and infuriating. If the album sounds like two solo projects pressed together, that's because it is. Creative tension strikes again.

On the "Speakerboxxx" disc, Big Boi clings to Outkast's platinum past. Although Andre 3000 produces a few tracks and Killer Mike, Ludacris and Jay-Z make cameos, the disk is Big Boi's vision how rap should sound. Apparently, it should sound like every previous Outkast album, with funk that drips and oozes through speaker boxes.

On songs like "The Way You Move," "Flip Flop Rock," and "Ghettomusick," the fastest mouth in the south aims to give you an "eargasm." Big Boi, Outkast's Paul McCartney, is content to fill the world with silly rap songs. Indeed, what's wrong with that?

But Andre 3000, Outkast's John Lennon and the most flamboyant man in hip-hop, doesn't want to rap anymore. So he doesn't. Instead, on "The Love Below" disc, he sings, produces and unleashes his repressed inner freak.

He's a lover, not a rapper now. He sings with Kelis, Norah Jones and Rosario Dawson. "Happy Valentine's Day," "Dracula's Wedding" and "Prototype" exemplify his sappy worldview, which sometimes resembles a Hallmark card but more often rocks the halls.

Because he shoots for the moon, he often misses. At least he dares to land among the stars. In songs like "Hey Ya," he sounds like the future.

"Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" is too long, but so is eternity. So is "The White Album." Its flawed tracks, like beauty marks, add character. Its occasional mistakes are still more mesmerizing than most other rappers' masterpieces.

Like ying and yang or Paul and John, Big Boi and Andre -- and their solo disks -- complete each other. I hope they don't break up, because I need to hear more hip-hop music that challenges and confronts.

As Outkast battles for creative control, it battles against complacency.