A Lost Classic from OutKast and Co
The Dungeon Family's 2001 Album is Funkin' Delicious
© Ben Wood
Mar 2, 2007
Even in Darkness
Check out these freaky dudes! 2001's Even in Darkness saw OutKast dons Big Boi and Andre 3000 hooking up with their old Atlanta, Georgia posse – named after the basement they used to hang out and freestyle in as teenagers. Sandwiched in-between OutKast’s breakthrough Stankonia set and their Greatest Hits, it pretty much sank without trace. But give it a listen: it’s a lost classic packed with melodies galore, great lyrics and plenty of P-Funk craziness.
Cee-Lo Green and friends
And their posse have talent too – this is no charity exercise like Eminem’s D12 project. Listen carefully and you may hear a certain Cee-Lo Green (of Gnarls Barkley fame) singing, rapping, and everything in-between! Though things got ugly after the record was released (with the less well-known members complaining that the record company buried it), it sounds like these old muckers had a ball making it.
The 14-strong supergroup features Cee-Lo Green (the rapper/singer whose classic soul voice was behind this year’s Gnarls Barkley mega-smash ‘Crazy’), super-producers Organised Noize and regular OutKast collaborators Sleepy Brown and Big Gipp among others. With their pseudonyms and stoned-out medieval warrior image, they come across like a gene-splice between George Clinton’s legendary P-Funk crew and 90s rap supergroup Gravediggaz.
The sound
The Family’s lyrics are multifaceted, with old-skool party jams and macho boasts sitting naturally alongside mystical rambling and more socially conscious moments. Musically, the album’s experimental and positive attitude is a million miles away from the Wu Tang-inspired griminess, sold-out R’n’B-style cheese and plastic gangster posing of their peers of the time. It's hip-hop you can dance and think to: musical and accessible but always credible.
Like ‘Stankonia’, the album switches styles like Dre changes his clothes. But the signature sound is a sometimes squelchy, cartoon-funk sound with honeyed vocals and skilful raps weaving in and out, overlaid with all manner of keyboard textures.
The tunes
‘Six Minutes’ gives most of the crew a chance to show their lyrical skills, and its R’n’B-meets hip-hop groove would have been a monster hit in a just world. ‘Crooked Booty’ is a gleeful shot of Dirty South attitude; ‘Follow the Light’ brings the gospel; while ‘Forever Pimpin’ is the obligatory mack daddy moment. And ‘What is Rap?’ makes the crew’s debt to George Clinton explicit, lyrically reprising Maggot Brain’s ‘What is Soul?’
Self-referential and seriously funny, ‘Even in Darkness’ is a great record in its own right, a lot more than some kind of self-indulgent ‘project’. And, if you don’t believe it, Big Boi may just set his dogs on you…
Learn more about the Dungeon Family
