SPACED COWBOYS: LIVE EXCERPT FROM A TREATISE ON OUTKAST'S STANKONIA

WE pledged allegiance to The Funk, the whole Funk and nothing but Stanklove when OutKast, Player Kings of the Dirty Dirty, landed their pimpmobile Ark at Philadelphia's Electric Factory amidst a sleet storm on March 4th.

The ATLien duo's eclectic Dirty South Soul uplifted their (mostly young, adolescent) Faithful out of the cavernous warehouse of the venue and away from the blizzard conditions outside towards the groovy firmament of Stankonia.

Ludacris opened with a more mundane set, supported by two fellows intent on "disrupting the peace." Ludacris extolled the virtues of Chronic-toking, alcoholism and running amok in an orgiastic sea of excess. His vision of the "'Ho wide world" was met with much applause and glee by the decidedly hedonistic audience --- lingerie was thrown on stage, as if he were the latest stand-in for Teddy Pendergrass. And his hit, "Southern Hospitality," got the young white kids attempting to "throw dem 'bows." Still, for all the hard-rhyming celebration of the hip-hop-renovated Pimp Paradise, what most struck me was the appearance of two dour roadies throughout Ludacris' time...as if they were inviting mayhem from the audience and glocks drawn. [No stereotype meant...however, it was not as if all this superfluous personnel were needed to tune guitars and shit.]

OutKast's Dre & Big Boi, once they emerged from behind their graphic, Riot-One Nation Under A Groove-referencing, black-and-white American flag backdrop, provided a decided study in contrasts. The second, molten-lava background meant to invoke the illusory Stankonia's center-earth location spliced --- almost Lautréamont-style --- with the white picket fences separating the backing vocalists, two guitarists and deejay Swift on his pedestal-pulpit from the stage proper showed the crowd that they had entered "anutha zone," wherein OutKast's rhyme ruminations on the Player vs. Poet lifestyle traditions of the black/blues aesthetic would be considerably deeper and more complex than Ludacris' straightforward party groove. The deeper field background also denoted the group's essential ties to the country and Georgia's red clay and kudzu roots essence.

The guitarists echoed the yin-yang dichotomy that seems to make OutKast tick: rhythm guitarist Talkabout (? or so said Dre...) was a big ole, bald-headed pappy who has obviously been around the rock block twice or thrice and wore overalls and long-johns to match his bluesy vocals and country air. Lead guitarist Mysterious Dave (again?), who so indelibly solos on "Bombs Over Baghdad" (live, video, wax), was by comparison a dreadlocked and scarf-and-shades bedecked beanpole, supplying the Hendrixian juice with every strum emanating from his floral dolman sleeves and his laidback, stone free stance. The guitarists' interplay seemed separated by light years, as if they simultaneously piped their licks in from different planets. Still, their work somehow meshed to vitally underpin the long set's visitation of OutKast's back catalogue, including selections from Aquemini and Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik.

Opening with fiery rocker "Gasoline Dreams," the band had the audience riveted and replete with desire from then on. For all that the energy ebbed slightly during some of the slower and older numbers (many of the younger attendees were obviously Stankoniaconverts), the show belied the adage that hip-hop has always been a dubious prospect at best live. Aquemini hit/controversial single, "Rosa Parks," invoked country; "Crumblin' Erb" brought the stoner rock; "Humble Mumble" channeled kaiso, Hi Life and Zairean OK Jazz, as well as Jimmy Castor's Latinized acid funk-rock; low rider anthems got the nod on "Red Velvet"; first single/hit "Player's Ball" put the Dirty South spin on G-Funk; and "So Fresh, So Clean" rap's earlier, simpler days of masterful boasts unburdened by boring thug menace.

Most interesting was Dre's stage movement: he continually tossed his head back, nodding to the inner kozmic beat, manipulating his body three-dimensionally on planes both visible and unseen, as if he were the Ghost of prewar Sierra Leonean dancer Asadata Dafora come to bring the principles of ceremony to the uninitiated masses. Indeed, at one point, after the appearance of Aquemini Records' debut artist Slimm Calhoun, Killer Mike, BackBone and assorted other Dungeon Family brers, the duo and two others performed an impromptu, electrifying, postmodern ring shout and circle-centered, Western Sudanese-derived dance (channeling the Geechee Walk plus the Bamboula and Calinda (Lindy Hop antecedent) once so popular in Old New Orleans) that proved that slavery was not so long ago nor it's African retentions --- as chiefly safeguarded by the Gullah residents of Georgia's Sea Islands --- utterly forgotten. This was such an intriguing occurrence, utterly lost on the audience...it warranted the attendance of Yale Afrolantica scholar Robert Farris Thompson to get giddy about it and dedicate his next weighty tome to the Mysteries of Stanklove.

Lone backing brer L'il Will stepped forward at various points to work the chicken grease, Loverman hoodoo on the "lonely girls" in the audience who "just want [ed] to be fucked." The Brides O' Funkenstein-mimicking sisters --- the skinny one with the freaky-deke 'Fro and the sexy one with the hips --- kept a much lower profile, wiggling their asses, sparring with the DJ and Dre (who joined them intermittently), really stretching out only on "Humble Mumble" as stand-ins for Erykah Badu and, of course, "B.O.B." where they had to make up for the absence of the Morris Brown choir. The most exciting guest was Big Gipp, who appears on Stankonia and will shortly drop a solo album. Gipp and his Lucy Pearl singer wife, Joi, are the hottest and most compelling couple in rock & roll since Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg (thus far devoid of the drama and narcotic debauchery). Onstage, Gipp and his mouthful of gold teeth acts as a jolt of quicksilver, the equivalent of having Otis Redding, the Family Stone's Cynthia Robinson or Iggy Pop sit in.

I must pause here to admit that my true aim in braving the elements to catch a glimpse of Stanklove in action was to see Those Dancers. Y'all know: dem boys who do the Rag Top during "B.O.B.'s" electro beat-guitar duel in the video. They first appeared at the show in solid black umpire gear, like the Ton Ton Makout minions of Darth Vader's own Hell (the White Man's Hell is the Black Man's Heaven?), to add visual punch to "Gasoline Dreams" (as the S1Ws did for many an PE opus). The fabulous foursome reappeared in blinding white to illustrate "So Fresh, So Clean" and do the Philly Dog for "We Luv Deez Hoez," with obliging rent-a-'hos (one of whom had so much silky, ringleted hair sewn atop her head that she was a dead-ringer for Hendrix girlfriend Fayne Pridgeon in her wig, as interviewed in the documentary Jimi Hendrix). Best of all was when the quartet of dancers displayed their inimitable grace throughout the closing show-stopper "B.O.B" and each took a solo, whilst also engaging various Dungeon Family allstars in joking footwork duels. These guys should have their own tour; they are the most exhilarating dancers in pop performance since the Ikettes (the Gloved One's much-touted style (as his baby sister's in turn...for all that OutKast have joined an MTV tribute project dedicated to her) has soured on me over the waning years of his popularity/relevance).

The Stank Love Tour, in practice, was also a meditation on the spoils and sorrows of negotiating the tightrope between the StaggerLee and Shine axis, with Dre's tricksterism and Big Boi's underworld Cool Pose made manifest visually by costume and coif and viscerally through patented Organized Noise beats. Second to peeping the dancers, a prime motivation to see the show was Dre's hypothesized sartorial excess/elegance. He did not disappoint, resplendent in turquoise paillette, sub-Sgt. Pepper jumpsuit, accented with silver piping and silver Sandy Duncan wig. Big Boi was typically understated in the same (and complimentary) blue and white striped Chicago baseball jersey he donned on Stankonia's back cover, with matching solid shorts. Gipp upstaged them both, if you didn't think it possible: he spun out late in the show wearing a royal blue, crochet Sly Stone hat with side tie, more beads than Big Boi on his cornrows and a magnificent, Stars 'n Bars jumpsuit emblazoned with the state seal of Georgia. Phew! Lest you think the inclusion of these descriptions superfluous: style and adornment are integral to the pan-African worldview, as they are to the Pimp. The denizens of the Dungeon Family are not random eccentrics with a jones for haberdashery; rather they are cogs in a sartorial continuum pinched by white rockers but most effectively created and upheld by a long lineage of black men stretching from Estevanico The Black to New Orleans Witch Doctor John aka Jean Gris Gris (apocrypha has him a Senegalese prince sold into slavery whose personal style closely resembles Bootsy Collins') to Harlem Renaissance Poet Richard Bruce Nugent to James Brown, Hendrix, Sly and hip-hop's own Flavor Flav. Clothing, from this Africanist aesthetic perspective, is both weapon against the Eurocentric Establishment and rival players, as well as a key visual locus of The Funk (and other schools of The Mysteries).