Hip-Hop Hope

Image credit: Outkast: Martin Schoeller/Corbis Outline

'KAST PARTY Dre (left) and Big Boi hope to create one nation under a groove

A lot of people will tell you the last great hip-hop album was OutKast's eclectic supersonic explosion ''Stankonia.'' Well, get ready for the next great hip-hop album, and naturally, it's from the same duo: a two-CD set (due in May), with one disc leaning toward Big Boi's kinetic rhymes and R&B beats (think ''So Fresh, So Clean''), the other tilting in the direction of Dre's funked-out freak show (''B.O.B.''). ''It's our way of telling two perspectives of the story,'' says Big Boi. ''When you got this much creative juice flowing, the pot's gonna overflow, so you have to get another pot.''

Die-hard fans will argue that ''Stankonia'' was actually OutKast's third or fourth masterpiece, after 1996's ''ATLiens'' and 1998's ''Aquemini.'' But only ''Stankonia'' sold 3 million copies and brought the duo two Grammys -- though, as Big Boi points out, their music has changed as times have changed: ''The records we're making now sound nothing like ''Stankonia.'' These days, everything's f---ed up -- the economy, the White House, the war. Folks like the Grateful Dead and Curtis Mayfield brought people through tough times. Right now, people are not making music to bring the people through. We will.''