The album presaged hip hop's "Dirty South" aesthetic, which later achieved mainstream recognition. Its smooth musical style, drawing on soul and funk musical traditions, and the duo's clever lyrics helped define Southern hip hop's sound, which influenced acts like Goodie Mob, Joi, and Bubba Sparxxx. In "The New Rolling Stone Album Guide", "Rolling Stone" journalist Roni Sarig writes that the album "marked a coming out for a region that would dominate hip-hop by the decade's end", commenting that, with it, Outkast "helped define a new stream of hip-hop that would rejuvenate the music in the late '90s and early 2000s." AllMusic's Stanton Swihart comments that "no one sounded like OutKast in 1994" and that the album showcased Organized Noize as it "began forging one of the most distinctive production sounds in popular music in the '90s".