Hear the isolated vocals for Outkast song ‘Bombs Over Baghdad’
Outkast’s ‘B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)’ was a highlight of their fourth album, Stankonia, and was for a reason. The 2000 project was one of the duo’s best bodies of work and has since become a hip-hop classic.
As a follow-up to their 1998 album Auemini, André 3000 and Big Boi, in partnership, created a five-time platinum record so influential it earned the duo a Grammy award for ‘Best Rap Album’. Although ‘Ms Jackson’, the project’s second single, has become one of the most memorable songs from Stankonia, its lead single ‘B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)’ was revolutionary.
The instrumental of the song was completely different to anything heard before. It was fast-paced high-tempo and incorporated elements from other genres, including drum & bass and EDM. On the song, André 3000 raps unbelievably fast over a quirky sound funk-inspired bassline.
It would seem, looking back on the song, that it was a response to the war waged in Iraq by the US. However, it was released over a year before 9/11 and even before George W Bush was elected president of America. In fact, retrospectively, it seems prophetic. The strange amalgamation of electronic music, gospel, drum and bass, and rock worked despite the unlikely combination of sounds. The latter was what drove André 3000 — rock & roll.
During a conversation with the iconic Def Jam producer Rick Rubin, who famously used rock to ramp up the dynamism of hip-hop, André 3000 delved deeper into the backstory of ‘B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad),’ revealing that LA band Rage Against The Machine inspired him to produce the single.
Speaking on the Broken Record podcast, the emcee explained, “I wouldn’t have done ‘Bombs Over Baghdad’ if it weren’t for Rage Against the Machine because I felt urgency in their music, so I was like, ‘How can I add urgency to what we’re doing?’ It doesn’t sound like Rage Against the Machine.”
During the 2000s, a well-known formula for rappers was established that was almost guaranteed to generate a hit. From Fat Joe and Ashanti’s ‘What’s Love?’ to Busta Rhymes and Mariah Carey’s ‘I Know What You Want,’ MCs got a mellow instrumental to rap over with a vocalist to sing the chorus.
This R&B and rap fusion had a wide appeal and created number ones. Unfortunately, André 3000 was critical of this. Elaborating on this in a Billboard interview, the Atlanta native stated, “Everybody’s been doing music like they all have the same formula—e=mc2. They get a beat, an MC, somebody to sing the hook, and go platinum. Where’s music going to go when everybody’s trapped in this same repetitious flow?”
As such, he decided to turn to other artists for inspiration and not mimic his peers. Telling Rubin how other artists can create truly unique classics, André concluded, “Only thing I could say is, ‘Listen to everything outside of your genre! A lot of times it’ll help your genre in some type of way. If everybody’s just kinda listening to the exact same thing, it gets a little incestuous.” The rhymes of ‘B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)’ were exhilarating and truly high-octane. Since its release, only Busta Rhymes has ever come close to creating such a fast and thrilling track.