OutKast's 'Aquemini' certified Platinum

Why it matters

November 23, 1998. The RIAA certified Aquemini platinum, eight weeks after release. One million units sold. The certification matters because it documented, with the trade association's stamp on the paperwork, that OutKast had crossed from regional Southern success into national commercial standing. The Southern rap commercial argument had been pending for most of the 1990s. The Geto Boys had moved units. UGK had moved units. Master P had moved units regionally and then nationally. OutKast going platinum on Aquemini at the pace they did was the moment Atlanta itself joined that ledger as a credible national source. Within two years Atlanta would also produce Lil Jon's whole crunk movement, T.I.'s breakthrough, and the early infrastructure for what would become the trap economy. None of that scales the way it did without the post-Aquemini commercial visibility of Atlanta as a rap center. The platinum certificate is the receipt for that. You can argue OutKast deserved a faster pace. They eventually got it; Stankonia would go quadruple-platinum two years later. Aquemini just had to settle for being the album the next twenty years of Atlanta rap could point to.