No. 14: Andre 3000

Okay...for both of you who have been following along, you may remember back in the mid-30s of this countdown when I admitted that I had a bias against the south (not just in music, either) and that I didn't necessarily have the same orgasmic love affair with Outkast that some do.

That doesn't mean I don't have a major appreciation for what they've done — and the placement of André Benjamin (aka André 3000) in the top 15 is proof of that.

Yeah. I'm fucking weird. What genius isn't?

André is the rarest of rarities — a southern rapper who actually puts thought into his rhymes — and he's arguably the most well-rounded emcee on this list musically. He's completely unafraid to be different and take risks. Not all of those gambles paid off, mind you, but the vast majority have.

Outkast became an instant sensation in late 1993 with the release of their debut single, "Player's Ball," then followed up with their first LP, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. That album established the group as a national hip-hop powerhouse and broke the stranglehold that the New York and Los Angeles metrozones had on the genre in 1994.

André started taking some more chances on the next two Outkast projects, ATLiens and Aquemini, both of which continued the group's early run of success. Their greatest work, however, may have come on Stankonia, where André seemed to find just the right amount of strange.

While extremely successful commercially, Stankonia was also a hit with critics, and it firmly established André as one of the world's elite emcees (no disrespect to Big Boi, who was probably one of the last three or four to miss the cut for this countdown). His verse on "B.O.B." was a masterpiece — how many other rappers could flow so effortlessly over that warp-speed beat?

But then, André went on a bit of a hiatus as an old-school funk/R&B singer of sorts, scoring his biggest commercial success with "Hey Ya!" and using a similar style on the Idlewild soundtrack in 2006. He seems to finally be returning to his roots in recent years, making a few guest appearances toward the end of the decade and starting work on a new solo album as well as another Outkast project.

Like Common just below him, not all of André's experiments necessarily worked...but again, most of them did, and he brought something to hip-hop that nobody else has. In addition, the success he enjoyed with Big Boi transcended geography and paved the way for a slew of southern artists to blow up, including Ludacris, Goodie Mob and far, far too many other (less talented) acts.

No matter how much garbage the south churns out in the now and later, however, they'll always have André 3000 to brag about.