The mid-'90s saw the release of an incredible number of important hip-hop albums—Jeff Weiss' Rolling on Dubs column revisits these records around their 20th anniversary, retracing the past through a contemporary vantage point.

It starts in the Southern Baptist church and the red clay soil. It continues in the Dungeon, part tabernacle, part studio—blending voodoo healing rituals, slithering freestyles, and biblical spoken word. It slinks out the S.W.A.T. (southwest Atlanta), 10 miles to Curtis Mayfield's home studio, where Goodie Mob cooked Soul Food.

Origins can be corporeal or spiritual. In this case, they're inextricable. To understand why Soul Food stands up two decades later is like asking why people still revere sacred revelations. These texts are no less profound or unprovable than they ever were. They question the meaning of "truth" until it's unclear whether the gate was put up to keep crime out or keep your ass in. It's less about whether it's the government or the criminals peeking through your window; it's more about realizing that they're often indistinguishable.

We often mock the notion of "struggle rap," but the best rap emerged from the struggle. Yet the first bars of Soul Food aren't rapped, they're sung: "Lord it's so hard living this life." A weary benediction to the creator, Cee-Lo's screechy rasp is half-angel, half-devil, gifted and damned. This isn't blues, but it draws from the same poisoned well, feverishly trying to purify. Spirituals from the dirt. The Rhodes that belongs to Superfly. Death isn't knocking at the front door, it's in the house, snacking on the macaroni in the fridge, sitting on top of your chest. Freedom is the only goal. Different demons, same outcome.

OutKast was the face of Dungeon Family, but Goodie was the spine. Aquemini is the widely hailed masterpiece, but Soul Food is the vital nerve. The album is everything at once: the feast, the list of secret family recipes, the feeling of standing out in the cold.