People would stop by The Dungeon, or later on by the studio, and it was like a listening party damn near every night.

And when they released their first album as OutKast in the midst of the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop rivalry, nothing else in the world sounded quite like it.

Its been 25 years since the 1994 release of Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, and theres still nothing like it.

Big Boi and I were just fans of the music of the time and enjoyed rhyming, Benjamin tells the Recording Academy over the phone.

I lived it, saw it, and just spit it back out.

Not long after, they and schoolmates Goodie Mob caught the attention of hometown production trio Sleepy Brown, Rico Wade, and Ray Murray, collectively known as Organized Noize, and the whole group came together in a fluid collaborative troupe eventually known as the Dungeon Family.

When we were working on the OutKast vibe, even though there were two members in the group, we all considered ourselves OutKast at the timeincluding all of Organized Noize and the Goodie Mob members who appeared on the album, Murray says over the phone.

Rico Wade brought us to his house studio, where I heard the most interesting music production Id ever heard from Atlanta, he says.

While still in high school, the duo signed with LaFace Records, the Arista imprint run by L.A.

Reid and Babyface.

Before their first record, OutKast made waves with an appearance on a remix of fellow LaFace artists TLC s What About Your Friends and the magnetic single Players Ball, which was released as a Christmas single.

Nothing about that was supposed to work, but it was the beginning of what turned out to be one of the most incredible careers, Reid tells the Recording Academy.

Reid had been focused largely on pop and RB, and propelled his career into one of the most prominent producers and record executives across decadeseventually turning Epic records into a hip-hop hub.

After leaving Epic in 2017 ( Editors note: Reids transition out of Epic is tied to allegations of sexual harrassment ), Reid has since formed his own organization, HitCo Entertainment, where Big Boi is currently signed.

All I knew was that I loved Big Boi, I loved Andr, and I loved Organized Noize, and the record sounded incredible, Reid says.

Ive since learned every lyric to every one of their songs, and can rap along word for word.

Per Murray, the production draws inspiration from New York to Oakland, from pop appeal to intense musicality.

There were two ends of the spectrumJermaine Dupri was a hometown guy, and he discovered Kris Kross, and that was a major thing.

And then on the other side of the coin, you had Dr.

Dres The Chronic, which laid down the blueprint of craftsmanship and symmetry, Murray says.

Kris Kross were as big as you could be; they went around the world being from Atlanta without being in Atlanta.

And then The Chronic was about being as impactful as possible.

You have all of these different kinds of ways to maintain your integrity, which is the culture of hip-hop, but you can then still try to express it in terms of your neighborhood.

As we put all that stuff together and stirred it up, thats what clicked for us.

OutKast werent afraid of leaning into local slang and had no interest in catering to the expectations of radio rap.

We had our own lifestyle and lingo and confidence from the inside, so it really didnt matter what everyone else thought, Benjamin says.

I just thought it sounded good and because we were all in The Dungeon making it, as a whole.

Outkast First Album