January 18, 2001

Outkast: London King's Cross Scala

The world's greatest hip-hop group hit London for a secret showcase...

Industry showcase parties can be hellish at best, what with all that corporate hospitality and enforced bonhomie, but once in a while a spanner gets thrown in the works.

Such is the case with Outkast tonight, whose well-honed repertoire and disciplined approach presents an invited audience with as much controlled danger as it does with packaged entertainment. A soon shirtless Dre shows off his tattoos whilst Big Boi displays his cornrowed head, and Outkast - flanked by DJ, backing singers and guitarists - take the gathered record company employees, executives, musicians, friends, journalists, well-wishers and lucky liggers to a special hell called South West Atlanta.

Its a mental journey, of course, not physical, but Outkast's many gifts include the ability to juxtapose scenes from their lives with humorous situations and social commentary, thanks to an acute sense of history and a deep knowledge of the everyday politics of other, less fortunate African American lives.

The brand of hip-hop on display here is so far off the beaten track, some have even questioned if Outkast are actually hip-hop. Of course, Dre and Big Boi are steeped in the culture - should you check their agile, almost telepathic rhyme display and the ferocity of the beats - it's just that they refuse to be narrow-minded.

An open-minded approach means Outkast's often devastating songs find room for traces of rock, Southern Soul, jazz, funk and blues amidst arrangements that belie Dre's classical training as a pianist. It also means explosive excursions of the calibre of 'Gasoline Dreams', and the heavy, propulsive stomp of 'Bombs Over Baghdad' don't follow any other blueprint but theirs. Heck, even the wry 'So Fresh, So Clean' and the apologetic yet sturdy 'Ms Jackson' sound like no-one else.

Thus, it seems a pity the frenzied energy dissipated by Outkast isn't rewarded with an equal amount of appreciative energy from the audience. That's how showcases go, though.

Dele Fadele