Like many a southern rap fan, I grew up on André and Antwan, better known as André 3000 and Big Boi, and even better known as Outkast. When all the players came from far and wide, I too wanted to attend the “Player’s Ball.” What’s the funkiest kind of music for my soul? Southernplayalistickcadillackmuzik, of course. I, too, have moved on up in the world like elevators.
And the really real? Ain’t nobody dope as me, I’m just so fresh, so clean. That’s how I was raised. And my mama raised me right and didn’t raise no fools. So it was with great trepidation, niggawhaaaa and whatthefuckizyousayin’ that I read the since-deleted possible tweet from the Genius.com twitter account featuring a picture of styled-out Big and Dre that said: “Ain’t nobody dope as me i’m dressed so fresh, so clean.”
Look, I don’t know if this tweet is real or not or if somebody from Genius was behind it or not; all I really know is that I know nothing at all. But for a solid day, a mostly punctuation-less tweet (which makes me think Genius wasn’t behind it, they be punctuating and shit and the lyrics are correct on their site though that could have been changed a few days ago) had all kinds of hip-hop heads, rap aficionados and on-lookers on the freeway of love debate whether or not Sleepy Brown was singing “ain’t nobody dope as me, I’m just so fresh, so clean” or not. Because in the grand scheme of life, this shit matters.
I was tagged in a Facebook post because of this bomb that featured all types of discussion. There were the folks who always knew (wrongly, but we’ll get to that) that it’s “dressed so fresh, so clean;” the folks absolutely flabbergasted at this newfound “fact” as their entire childhoods were re-written; the folks who were like, “naw folk...it’s ‘just’;” and folks like me who were like, ‘hmmm, well in Atlanta, ‘just’ and ‘dressed’ do rhyme, but it has been ‘just’ to me and its gonna stay ‘just’ to me.
Because it’s 2018 and no celebrity is really any further than a tweet away from answering all of our most important, potentially childhood changing questions, somebody hit up Big Boi to ask him to clarify the song lyrics. And clarify he did, putting to bed any nonsensical rumors that Outkast was “dressed” so fresh, so clean. It’s “just,” fuckers.
And to the people who are out here trying to change rap lyrics, lore and stuntin’ language, the whole lot of you are assholes.