Speakerboxxx/The Love Below features a multifaceted array of collaborators, including Sleepy Brown, Killer Mike, Ludacris, Jay-Z, Rosario Dawson, Kelis, and Norah Jones.

A commercial success, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below became Outkast's first number-one album on the US Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 509,000 units, and went on to be certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in December 2004.

Outkast heavily promoted Speakerboxxx/The Love Below via interviews and televised performances, often separately, as the album was marketed as a consolidation of Big Boi and André 3000's solo records.

However, Outkast's management deemed the decision unsuitable, as Arista Records sought to capitalize on the momentum caused by the duo's then-recent Grammy Award victory.

In order to accurately display the postponed film's plot on audio recordings, background noise such as footsteps and car door slamming were interpolated into the album's tracks.

[7] One of the songs which did not make the final track listing was "Millionaire", André 3000's second collaboration with Kelis, which was instead included on her third studio album Tasty (2003) and subsequently released as a single.

[13][6] Big Boi's Speakerboxxx is an experimental Southern hip hop and progressive rap record with lyrical themes such as single parenthood, philosophy, religion, and politics.

[14][15] Brett Schewitz of Rolling Stone noted musical influences from Parliament-Funkadelic,[16] while independent critic Roni Sarig observed the emotional range in Big Boi's lyricism as wider on Speakerboxxx than on its predecessors.

[26][15] Mariachi-tinged hip hop track "The Rooster" discusses Big Boi's struggles as a single parent,[12][20] against an instrumentation based on "slippery" horns and loose wah-wah guitars.

[32] Featuring Killer Mike and Jay-Z, "Flip Flop Rock" is a hip hop track built on a "springy" guitar loop and a "beatific" piano,[26] while incorporating scratches and propulsive kickdrums.

[15][9] Comedian Henry Welch performs the brief interlude "D-Boi",[12] while Slimm Calhoun, Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz, and Mello appear on "Last Call", a track accentuated with aggressive horns and an eccentric theremin.

[12] In contrast with Speakerboxxx, André 3000's The Love Below was identified as a funk, jazz, pop, psychedelic, and progressive soul record comparable to the music of Prince in critical commentaries.

[5] André 3000's vocal performance on the string-driven intro was compared to Frank Sinatra by Andy Gill of The Independent,[25] while on the noise rock-lounge opener "Love Hater",[26] it was described as "mock crooning" by Stephen Thomas Erlewine.

[22][26][24] Lyrically an "ass-shaking jam session",[23] it introduces André 3000's second alter ego Ice Cold, who instructs the listeners to "shake it like a Polaroid picture".

[40] "Pink & Blue" contains samples of Aaliyah's 1994 song "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number" and reverses its lyrical theme, being directed towards an older love interest rather than a younger one.

[8] The selected cover for Speakerboxxx saw Big Boi dressed in a fur coat and baggy jeans, depicting the fictional procurer named Rooster, who frequently appears on the album.

[27] Brandon Soderberg of Spin retrospectively credited André 3000's flamboyant appearance on the artwork for inspiring rappers such as Kanye West, Lil B, and Cam'ron to embrace more feminine clothing styles, in contrast with rap's "normative masculinity".

[64] Outkast performed together at the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards Japan on May 23; Big Boi held solo concerts at the Shinkiba Studio Coast in Tokyo the following day,[65] and at the launch of Calvin Klein's fragrance Eternity Moment in New York City on June 3.

[71] In March 2003, MTV News reported "Church" and "Prototype" would be simultaneously released as the lead single from Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, and would be accompanied by a Bryan Barber-directed 30-minute short film comprising both songs' music videos; however, those plans never came to fruition.

[73] The music video for "Prototype" marked André 3000's directorial debut, and depicts him as an extraterrestrial family member, who falls in love with a woman after descending to Earth.

[15] Kris Ex wrote for Blender that the double album "holds an explosion of creativity that couldn't have been contained in just one LP",[23] while writing for Los Angeles Times: "It's not just that the collection stands so far above much of today's contemporary hip-hop and R&B; but that it surpasses the high level of genre-defying craftsmanship that the duo has cultivated for nearly a decade.

[20] Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine wrote that it is "greater than the sum of its parts, and this kind of expertly crafted pop and deftly executed funk rarely happen at the same time—not since Stankonia, at least.

[22] Ethan Brown from New York shared those sentiments, elaborating: "Big Boi's Speakerboxxx is bolder—he wants to go where most hip-hoppers fear to tread and take the MTV audience along with him.

"[29] In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau said the record could have been "the classic P-Funk rip it ain't quite" had Speakerboxxx alone been issued with "Roses", "Spread", "Hey Ya!

[41] On the contrary, Matt Harvey of BBC praised both counterparts, describing Speakerboxxx/The Love Below as "hilarious and thought provoking, goes on for hours (without ever getting boring) and is the most ambitious piece of pop [of 2003]".

Previously launched by their ineffable chemistry as MCs, overlapping and interlocking with a slick balance of world-weary caution and gallivanting abandon, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below was, for all its deserved success, the visible end of that dynamic.

O'Brien further emphasized the influence of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below on subsequent hip hop double albums, such as Street's Disciple (2004) by Nas, UGK's Underground Kingz (2007), Drake's Scorpion (2018), and Kendrick Lamar's Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers (2022).

[45] Chris DeVille wrote for Stereogum that The Love Below was sonically "an attempt at the kind of funkadelic genre mash Janelle Monáe successfully pulled off with The Electric Lady 10 years later.

[169] Although both he and Big Boi were insistent on denying the intensified rumors of Outkast's disbandment, André 3000 began increasingly expressing his desire to pursue a solo career throughout the promotional cycle for Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.

[174] Preezy Brown of Revolt described the Idlewild project as "devoid of the air of excitement and fanfare that surrounded Speakerboxxx/The Love Below", calling the latter "the duo's last true shining moment under the Outkast banner.