Rap Game Stressful...

Here's a hard truth that needs to be told and heard and understood: OutKast aren't getting back together. They just aren't. Stankonia, their last proper release as a bonafide duo, was 13 years ago. Andre is going to be Jimi Hendrix. Big Boi is making music with Phantogram and Wavves. They've moved on. It's time we did too. Because this shit is over, son. It's a wrap. It's time to stop pleading for the two to make an album together again. Just yesterday, for instance, in the comments of this Big Boi story on CNN. "PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD REUNITE WITH ANDRE. The world needs outkast. I am forreal." You're not wrong, person who comments on music stories on CNN, but please, do us all a favor and STFU already. We imagine the same kinds of voices follow Andre around, and that at least one of those voices sounds a lot like Adrien Brody.

What we need to do now is change our mindset. If a reunion (if that's even the right word) isn't possible, then we need to cherish in the incredible music the group already gave us. Let's revisit the 25 best OutKast songs of all time, in no particular order.

See Also:Big Boi of OutKast Talks His New Album and Why Andre 3000 Isn't on It: "He Said He Had To Do Some Gillette Shit"

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Andrew Zaeh

Big Boi just touched down in the city where nearly two decades ago he was booed mercilessly. While accepting an award for "Best Rap Duo" at the oft maligned Source Awards (beating hometown heros Smif N Wessun), he and his partner Andre (he wasn't even 3000 yet) were met with jeers at the podium. "The South got something to say!" exclaimed Andre before they exited stage left.

Well, these days Andre 3000 doesn't have much to say unless it's his lines in a Gillette commercial. Big Boi however, has got more to say than ever before. Although many uninitiated folks claimed Andre was always the real talent, it has become more and more apparent that Big Boi is no slouch when it comes to making the timeless, funk/soul induced compositions the duo was known for.

See Also:
- Big Boi Is Not Too Artsy
- Excerpt: Dirty South: OutKast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, And The Southern Rappers Who Reinvented Hip-Hop, Wherein Scarface Recalls His Mental-Health-Ward Days

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In honor of today being 4/20—every smoker's favorite day of the year—SOTC has compiled the 25 Best Rap Songs relating to weed. Though some may be more about bud than others, all are guaranteed to make your high all the more enjoyable. Be forewarned, though... this list doesn't have any happy hippy weed music—this is straight thugged-out entertainment. Locate your lighters.

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Rappers loved Amy Winehouse. The British warbler might not have collaborated with rap chaps to the extent that Mary J Blige has, but when she passed away earlier this year she did so leaving behind a discernible trail of hip-hop goodies. And the songs suggest there was a genuine bond and shared mentality between Winehouse and her rap suitors, unlike many a cobbled-together rapper-meets-singer tryst.

The posthumous project Lioness: Hidden Treasures, which has input from longtime Winehouse producer Salaam Remi and guest spots from Nas and ?uestlove, comes out this week. Here are Winehouse's ten most persuasive dalliances with the rap world.

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As we've already informed you, just about all of the shows that you were planning on attending this weekend have been called off. In other words, no Afro-Punk, no Ted Leo, no P.S. 1 Warm Up, and no Dave Matthews Band. After we collectively begin to pull ourselves together, put away our hacky sacks and fill our bathtubs up with water, we're going to need a new set of tunes to get us through to Monday. So, as an alternative to the Bob Dylan and Scorpions YouTubes that have been filling your newsfeeds for the past 24 hours, we've pulled together ten of our favorite rap songs that maintain some sort of connection to this weekend's storm, ranging from The Click's ode to Hurricane Malt Liquor to a Beastie Boys collaboration with DJ Hurricane and Jadakiss asking, "What if Manhattan was hit by Hurricane Katrina?" Enjoy these tracks while you still have power, and don't hestitate to remind those co-workers that "Hurricane" is one of the weak links on the mad underrated Desire.

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It wasn't all that surprising when Billboard crowned Adele's 21 as the top-selling album of the first six months of the year—the next-highest seller, Lady Gaga's Born This Way, is still trailing it by nearly a million copies. The British diva missed out on having the biggest-selling digital single of the year so far by a much smaller margin, with "Rolling In The Deep" taking second to Katy Perry's "E.T." by only 30,000 units. Both songs are quadruple platinum.

Of course, odds are Adele will end up with the top single and album by year's end, and she's racked up plenty of other impressive achievements during her hugely successful 2011 run. But perhaps the most rare and difficult to quantify measure of Adele's ubiquity is the sheer volume and diversity of all the singles charts "Rolling In The Deep" has appeared on; it may be the only hit in recent history, and perhaps ever, to appear on Billboard's adult contemporary, dance, pop, rock, R&B and (get this) Latin charts.

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Courtesy VICE Books

From Neu Sex

Sasha Grey is one of the most famous porn stars of our generation, and perhaps the first to achieve true crossover success, with starring roles in Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience and HBO's Entourage. You probably know her by name, face, and maybe even vagina (no judgments), but did you know that she's also a music nerd? Be still our hearts.

With a minimal/electronic project called aTelecine and an ever-growing music collection, Grey shows an impressive range for someone so young-and especially for someone involved in the adult industry. She's currently promoting her brand-new photo book, Neü Sex, which documents her recent life in self portraits: From post-coital stupors to silly faces snapped in mirrors, the book is an intimate look at what it's like to be Sasha Grey, as well as what it's like to be her husband, filmmaker Ian Cinnamon, who helped create many of the photos.

This past Monday at the Standard Hotel's Living Room, in a strictly enforced 20-minute time slot squashed between seven other journalists eager to discuss the book, we took advantage of Neü Sex's release to talk with Grey about rock-and-roll, aTelecine, and the pervasive abuse of Auto-Tune. Cinnamon hung out nearby, as he often does.

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Rap Radar has your hookup: I am beginning to suspect that Big Boi's (finally!) imminent Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty (which it's not even clear if this song is even on) is going to be fantastic. Here we have one of those heartbreakingly rare de facto Outkast reunion tracks, a simple-enough sex jam, but the ascending synth line snaking through it is salaciously beautiful, and then there's shit like "Like we work at IKEA/Test every piece of furniture to see if it is stable." If this doesn't make Chico Dusty it follows that at least someone believes there are 12-15 better songs to choose from. It's not impossible.

AllHipHop.com brings us a report on both Big Boi's allegedly imminent solo turn Sir Luscious Leftfoot: Son of Chico Dusty and the full-blown Outkast record that will emerge thereafter, good news that would be great news if he hadn't announced Chico Dusty's allegedly imminent release several times already. (That last one announces his jump from Jive to Def Jam, so maybe we can actually believe him this time.)

That such a major figure has been thus endlessly delayed/mistreated is not the crumbling music industry's finest hour. Thus, we feel compelled to reprise one of the strangest ways he's deigned to entertain himself in the interim. Oh, you want video? Roy Edroso, folks.