"Rosa Parks", named after the legendary civil rights activist Rosa Parks, is a funky, catchy song rooted in the bluesy chorus:

Ah ha, hush that fuss/Everybody move to the back of the bus/Do you wanna bump and slump with us/We the type of people make the club get crunk

"Skew It on the Bar-B" is one of the most beloved songs off the album, with a head-bopping beat and catchy chorus combined with intelligent and witty verses, including a very memorable turn by Raekwon (of The Wu-Tang Clan), concluding with a climactic staccato

Glocks blows leave 'em baggy and collect spot grows/Keep a watch froze, lean on the yacht and wash clothes/Let the chop blow, bag a half a block plot grows, what?

Twice upon a time there was a boy who died twice/and lived happily ever after but that's another chapter/live from home of the brave with dirty dollars/and beauty parlors and baby bottles and bowling ball Impalas/and street scholars that's majoring in culinary arts/You know how to work bread, cheese & dough

Alien can blend right on in wit' yo' kin/look again 'cause I swear I spot one every now & then/It's happenin' again wish I could tell you when/Andre this is Andre y'all just gon' have to make amends

"Synthesizer" is an apocalyptic, foreboding song with a memorable guest spot from legendary funkster George Clinton. Lyrically, this is one of the album's most well-developed songs. The first verse focuses on Andre Benjamin, singing about a lonely man in some unnamed city with an aimless life: Life is made of half illusion (illusion)/Forty percent confusion (confusion). The parentheticals here and throughout the verse are George Clinton in the background and seem to be almost sarcastic, pessimistic comments on the subject's extreme poverty, despair and hunger. In the second verse, Big Boi criticizes an ill-tempered thug, warning him:

...niggaz think about the trigger before you pull it/on liquor stores and banks/Them folks got more than enough bullets to put that ass/off in the slang, don't claim no gang

Conceived under the influence of toxic wasted doctors/Computer buggin debuggin device-a and vice versa/and various viruses/Performing with laser-like precision a verbal incision/For a lingustic ballistic lobotomy/Mind-fuckin you, a psycho-sodomy/of the medula oblongata/Accept your mind down your spine and out your behind/Fuck you

"Slump" is an anthemic, sing-along recollection of older and better times, reminisces of a romanticized version of the past by an old-time thug that has forgotten the sadness and remembered only the good times of strength and power at the top of the hill, urban beauty and friendship.

Picture the scene, these fiends with fire/Ten dollar dreams, scheme, for a sack of that, believe that

I'm strickly dressin' dirty dirty/Gonna represent it to the t-top/Born and bred up on the street top/Get to the money and the sweet spot/and forever hollerin'/'Hootie Hoo!' when we see cops (hootie hoo warns others in an area that police officers have been sighted)

"West Savannah" is an biographical song (originally left off of Southernplayalisticadillacmuzak) rapped by Big Boi, describing the singer's teenage mother and broken home, living with his grandmother. Soon he begins using and selling drugs and food stamps, searching for a life in the ghettos. Like in the previous song, the chorus of "West Savannah" is anthemic and nostalgic: Now now now nine in my hand, ounce in my crotch/Diggin the scene with a gangsta slouch, mmmmhmmmm! The last verse then describes life as a southern thug: niggaz in the South wear gold teeth and gold chains/Been doin it for years, so these niggaz ain't gone change and defends the singer's lifestyle: You might call us country, but we's only Southern/And I don't give a fuck, P-Funk spot to spark another. The song ends with a skit where two young men call a girl after teasing each other's "game"; they rudely come onto the girl, who threatens to cut them up.

"Da Art of Stroytellin' (Pt. 1)" is one of the most memorable songs, with a unique, thin and ominous beat and a vaguely menacing tone of voice. The first verse describes a mixed-up encounter where the singer finds his girlfriend at the mall. Jealous, he ends up with a different girl but is also in need of contacting a third girl, the mother of his child. The second verse describes a tragic young girl called "Sasha Thumper", a childhood friend of the singer. As youngsters, the pair played together all night:

Three in the morning yawnin dancin under street lights/We chillin' like a villain and a nigga feelin right/in the middle of the ghetto on the curb, but in spite/all of the bullshit we on our back starin at the stars above/Talkin bout what we gonna be when we grow up/I said what you wanna be, she said, 'Alive'/It made me think for a minute, then looked in her eyes

Like "Pt. 1", "Da Art of Storytellin' (Pt. 2)" is thin and tense, with a pronounced apocalyptic bent to the beats, tone and lyrics. The first verse describes the seeming beginning of Armageddon. As pollution and mankind's corruption take hold:

the sky is electric blue/Mamma Earth is dyin and cryin because of you/Rainin' cats and jackles all shackles disintegrate, to residue

Rapin' (Mamma Earth's) heavenly body like a hoe, coochie so'/from niggaz constantly fuckin' her never lovin' her never showin'/appreciation bustin' nuts in her face when they done (see environmentalism)

"Mamacita" takes a somewhat different turn, focusing on romantic and sexual affairs. The chorus is a male and female verse exchanging pet names with alternating lust, love and hatred: Mamacita! Pappadonna! Mamacita! Pappadonna!. The first verse, by female rapper Masada, is a strong woman extolling her own virtues and abilities to distinguish a good lover from a bad. She brags about her own ability to defend herself: I'm from the Bricks we get kicks, offa loud gun shot licks/Fuck stones and sticks, loudmouths get nicks. The second verse is Andre criticizing women he views as being hypocrites: Niggaz all dogs? If niggaz all dogs, then what you call broads?/Felines in heat, meowin for some yawn balls and complaining about unreasonably critical women: But she's back at you like a pit/mixed with a chihuahua how much meaner can you get?/Don't let her have her way with you she's gonna have a fit/You're the candy apple of her eye and bout to get bit. Though the end of this verse seems to advocate domestic violence, a close look at the lyrics reveals the inherent negative judgement of spousal abuse.

grab her by her neck, throw her on the wall/Say, 'Bitch don't ever disrespect me never not at all'/These simple words can put a pause to half of the applause/Them black ball laws of balance at all cost

Continuing with the sudden slow-down of the album with the previous track, "Spottieottiedopaliscious" is a jazzy and funky song, largely instrumental in the beginning. This song is unusual in that it uses live instrumentation, including drums, guitars and trumpet. With silky R&B vocals, this song is most reminiscent of early 1970s crooners like Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, with a powerful, triumphant trumpet break. The second and third verses are potent, witty spoken-word pieces. Some highlights of the psychedelic spoken poetry, a distinctive characteristic of OutKast:

I was so engulfed in the Old 'E'/I never made it to the door you speak of hard core (Old E refers to Olde English, a brand of very cheap malt liquor)

this fine bow-legged girl fine as all outdoors/lulls lukewarm lullabies in your left ear/competing with "Set it Off," in the right/But it all blends perfectly let the liquor tell it (notice another OutKast characteristic: the alliteration of "lulls lukewarm lullabies")

eyes beaming like four karats apiece just blindin' a nigga/felt like I/chiefed a whole O of that Presidential/My heart was beating so damn fast/never knowing this moment would bring another/life into this world

Can't gamble feeding baby on that dope money/might not always be sufficient but the/United Parcel Service & the people at the Post Office/didn't call you back because you had cloudy piss/So now you back in the trap just that, trapped/Go on and marinate on that for a minute

To come in packs, to feed, takin what we need/to succeed, you know what we gon' do, on this road/We gon' explode, now are you ready for this territory/Makin our life one big story to tell/Reality amongst the youth, long as, breath is in my body/I got proof, I'm not scared

The third verse begins with an interesting device, paragraph indent is spoken in an onomotapoetic fashion, as though the singer is describing the actions of writing the words. This is followed by a denunciation of racial politics in America, criticizing the white mainstream for ignoring crack cocaine when it was only killing African-Americans, then panicking over the "crack epidemic" when white teens started using it. The fourth verse is a frightened rapper (Big Boi), unsure if he will be able to live up to the expectations caused by his last albums, mentioned by name as OutKast's previous two albums: Southernplayalisticadillacmuzak and ATLiens. The last verse is a again a condemnation of joyless, gangsta lives, with time spent imprisoned, in dire poverty and in fear of death.

"Nathaniel" is apparently a man rapping, a cappella, over a telephone while busy sounds of movement occur in the background. The lyrics indicate that he is either in prison or in the military, or perhaps a military prison. He is frustrated, not used to the conditions (I'm used to smokin chronic movin pounds) and getting away from people who are not his caliber: These niggaz called ballers sellin dimes and licks/I can't wait til the day they let me go/So I can eat some steak and shrimp/grab a mic, and bust a flow.

"Liberation" is perhaps the most beloved song on the album among OutKast fans, both for the innovative music and groundbreaking lyrics. Divided into three parts, each drawn together by a piano-driven, haunting melody, the song is unusual (for most rappers, though less so for OutKast) for using live instruments instead of samples and synthesizers. The first section is sung in an ominous yet harmonic fashion, describing, in three verses, a man, tired from age and depression and boredom, unable to gain the energy or courage to make the difficult choices he once took for granted. He feels himself sinking into middle-aged obscurity: And I done took so much, not givin' my glory/Now have a choice to be who you wants to be. Erykah's Badu's (note: she was married to Andre) verse, the fourth, and the second movement of the piece, begins after a climactic break to the repeated line (s)hake that load off. She sings in a silky, soulful voice, about a successful singer, dealing with the pressures of fame. Contrasted with the lack of success of the first section, the character described here seems to be a hero, but evidently, he does not enjoy his rich and famed life. In spite of his success:

First class broad treat you like a nigga po/You wanna say "Wait!" but you're scared to ask/as your world starts spinning and it's moving fast

The third section is the most interesting. A spoken word poem with rhymes at a dizzying rate, this is perhaps the most memorable verse of the album. It seems to be about both the first two characters (who are, also, perhaps the same person), criticizing them ever more harshly with each line. Some memorable lines:

I must admit, they planted a lot of things/in the brains and the veins of my strain/Makes it hard to refrain, from the host of cocaine

get beheaded when you falsely dreaded/Melanin silicon and collagen injected

you lookin at the canvas of life/and not through the peephole of mortality/Single-minded mentality/Gettin over on loopholes/Gettin paid two-fold on technicalities/Clickin your heels, scared to bust how you feel/Packin' steel/Pickin cotton from the killing fields with no toe

your cowardly lies never defyin the jackals who babble/Runnin' with they pack, tail between your legs/Though the man on your head say the story/As you downplay your glory/Cacklin, helpin the shacklin of your brethern happen/Just by rappin'.../Libertad

Beginning with a blistering guitar and a infectious, solid beat, "Chonkyfire" is an appropriate ending to the album. A funky rock and roll song with some psychedelic and macho lyrics, bragging about nonsense. Both lyrically and musically, this song shows clearly the influence of P Funk on the development of OutKast's sound: Do you know what brings rats, mice, snakes up out of they hole/Chonkyfire, spliced with rock & roll/You are now entering the fifth dimension of ascension/Our only intention is to take you high, high.

Personnel

1998	The Billboard 200	                No. 2
1998	Top Canadian Albums	                No. 17
1998	Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums	                No. 2

1999	Rosa Parks	                The Billboard Hot 100	          No. 55
1999	Rosa Parks	                Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks  No. 19
1999	Da Art Of Storytellin (Part 1)	Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks  No. 67
1999	Rosa Parks	                Rhythmic Top 40	                  No. 9