Credit: Album cover

Aside from their obvious hit singles, it’s hard to think of an OutKast song more impactful than ‘B.O.B’. Songs like and ‘Ms. Jackson’ and ‘Roses’ may be commercial successes, but ‘Bombs Over Baghdad’ had a political impact like no other record in their catalog.

Following the success of 1998’s Aquemini album, the Atlanta duo decided to jump out of the box and try their hand at electronic music, rock, gospel and drum and bass with ‘B.O.B’. André 3000 cited Rage Against the Machine as inspiration for the track whilst chatting to legendary producer Rick Rubin on his Broken Record podcast.

“I wouldn’t have done ‘Bombs Over Baghdad’ if it weren’t for Rage Against the Machine,” he said. “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.”

Three Stacks raps with force in the first verse, “Inslumnational, underground/ Thunder pounds when I stomp the ground/ Like a million elephants or silverback orangutans/ You can’t stop the train/ Who want some? Don’t come unprepared/ I’ll be there, but when I leave there/ Better be a household name/ Weatherman tellin’ us it ain’t gon’ rain.”

Speaking over two decades ago, Big Boi hoped ‘B.O.B’ and their Stankonia album would usher in a new sound for Hip Hop at a time when he believed the genre was stagnant.

“You know what? It’s good, too, if people do that,” he told Rolling Stone about artists potentially replicating OutKast’s sound. “When we started making this album, we was like, ‘Ain’t hardly anything out.’ Everybody doing the same thing. For us to come and drop a drip in the bucket, make some waves and inspire different producers to go to other realms of the music, then good. It helps hip-hop as a whole. I’m just glad God chose us.”

André 300 added, “It’s the people who take whatever music they doing so far to the left of what was going on. Put on any album from goddamned 1966 and put on a Sly Stone album — it sounds very different. P-Funk from any time sounds different. Those are the people that inspired us to blow n-ggas’ minds. That’s what we really into. Mind-blowin’ shit.”

What is Outkast’s ‘B.O.B’ actually about?

Despite being named ‘Bombs Over Baghdad’, OutKast’s song was actually made before George W. Bush had even become president of the United States. Instead of being a response to the Iraq War, which lasted from 2003 until 20011, André 3000 simply overheard the phrase “bombs over Baghdad” whilst watching a news report on tour in London, and decided to put it into a song.

It was only in 2003 when the US military invaded Iraq that it became a political anthem, with soldiers singing the lyrics to ‘B.O.B’ whilst riding into battle. Big Boi, who was opposed to the U.S. invading Iraq without the support of the United Nations, never intended for the song to serve as a pro-war exercise.

“We make a record and then it is up to people to take what they want from it,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “We explain a song when people ask, but we can’t control how they feel about it.

“In our case, fans know where we stand pretty much. I talk to them in the street all the time. I really think Bush should have gone through the United Nations before going over there. But once the fighting starts, everything changes.”

He added, “You have guys over there with families here, and you have to support the troops and pray for them. So, if the song helps them keep their spirits up, I don’t have a problem with that.”

As we’ve seen throughout the years, Hip Hop has the power to influence real life, with some of the biggest tracks including NWA’s ‘Fuck Tha Police’ and Public Enemy’s ‘Fight the Power’. Big Boi himself described the genre as “the sound of the rebellious” during an interview with The Guardian.

“I’d say it’s the universal language of the youth,” he said. “And whether it’s teenagers to people in their 20s, 30s, 40s to 50s, there’s no age limit on it. It’s what brings people together. You can go to a concert and it’s everybody in that motherfucker! So yeah, it is a universal love language.”

Produced by Earthtone III, OutKast’s ‘B.O.B’ has often been described as one of the greatest songs of all time. The single went platinum despite never charting on the Billboard Hot 100 but peaked as high as number 66 on the UK Singles Chart.

In popular culture, ‘B.O.B’ was used in the video game Saints Row IV and appeared in movies such as How High, Head of State and Scoob!, whilst also inspiring songs like Iggy Azalea’s ‘Work’ and Janelle Monae’s ‘Many Moons’.