Song of the Day: Outkast “So Fresh, So Clean (Altered Tapes Remix)”

Altered Tapes revisit Outkast’s “So Fresh, So Clean” single, taken from the 2000 album, Stankonia. Altered Tapes offer up a dancehall-flavored rework that expands on the original’s memorable Joe Simon sample (“Before the Night is Over” from his 1977 album, Easy to Love).

While Outkast mined that sample to perfection on what remains, possibly, their signature song, this remix offers a sparer read on the material that further emphasizes the source material. It also manages to retain much of Big Boi and André 3000‘s raps. While not the most radical imagining, Altered Tapes breathes new life into what has become a Southern hip-hop war horse, giving us all something fresh to really sink our teeth into.

Altered Tapes is a Chicago-based production duo consisting of Maker and DJ Trew. The pair have combined decades of hardcore crate digging and, in their own words, “elevate[d] the art of the remix to unexplored levels”. They have been responsible for dozens of memorable reworks of classics over the years. The pair specialize in digging into the essence of the tracks they work with and refashioning them into irresistible dance floor bangers.