Arguably one of the greatest groups of all-time never seems to have a fault. Sure, you may have thought that Idlewild was a tripped-out prohibition tale of musical fancy and that its soundtrack was their weakest to date, but face it – you can’t stop the brothers from the A from speaking how they feel. And when success gets to be too commonplace, it’s only right for us, the media and you, the fans – to throw salt in their game.

Yet, still stand OutKast – more succinctly – Antwan “Big Boi” Patton. Daddy Fat Sacks tried to tell y’all that he was coming when he dropped Speakerboxx. But to no avail, the false word was that the duo was breaking up, that Andre 3000 was outshining his lyrical partner and friend since high school. Whatever you may think or say, Big Boi and OutKast have been about going against the grain and come this October, General Patton will lead his musical brigade – Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty – into stores, much to the dismay of any hater.

Big Boi sits down with HipHopDX to talk about his latest album, why these lists don’t mean shit and why this “knight in rhyming armor” is not disbanding OutKast anytime soon.

HipHopDX: Why did it take you so long to push out your own solo album?
Big Boi: The reason it took so long is because we’ve been doing the OutKast records and those take time. I’ve actually been working on this record right now for – I started getting the beats for it like four years ago – and actually started recording 19 months ago. I started recording on Martin Luther King’s birthday last year. It takes time. It’s not like fast food. It takes a minute to create that new, new fresh shit.

DX: What’s going to be your first single when you push it out?
BB: The first single is a song called “Something’s Gotta Give” [click to listen] featuring Mary J Blige. It’s definitely for the people. The album is filled with all types of songs; from club bangers to songs that deal with relationships and everything else but if you know anything about me and what I stand for, I’m going to give the people something to think about too at the same time. Now, being that we got the biggest election of our lifetime coming up, I just thought it was only appropriate to give the people something that’s kind of catered to that.

DX: When you guys first came out, you guys said that the South had something to say. Do you think that what’s coming out of the south right now is kind of repetitive?
BB: You can’t just clump it all together. I mean I don’t think it’s repetitive; you got different artists that do different things. Yes, there’s a lot of dance music that goes on in Atlanta but you also got artists like Lil Wayne [click to read] who came out and sold a million fucking records the first week. You can’t clump it all together. People do different things, and Hip Hop started in the parks of New York with Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash. And what were they doing was dancing like a ma’fucka in their videos. They were breakdancing, the whole entire yard! Don’t hate on the south, man, ‘cause they found their nature and what they like to do down there! I mean if you don’t like it, don’t deal with it. I know some Hip Hop purists are like, “Oh this is a disgrace to Hip Hop,” but who are they to judge? That’s the shit that be killing me.

DX: You and The Dungeon Family all stand up for the entire A; does it upset you to see the in-fighting about who’s from Bankhead or who’s not from Bankhead; that type of little bullshit?
BB: To me, the only thing about the beef shit is like, you know, niggas from the south don’t really participate in that shit. What’s going on now is some new shit niggas started doing. With the Internet going on and people being able to just put up little videos talking about this person, it’s like going for television ratings. I guess certain artists might use it as a vehicle to get more exposure.

DX: It kind of seems that’s what is going on with this Rick Ross situation. I mean even if Trick had beef with Rick Ross, he could’ve said, “Well yeah, I did it,” or throw him under the bus or whatever. I guess for the sake of business and how Florida is doing right now, he kind of just shied away from all of that. Do you think the same thing should’ve happened between Shawty Lo and T.I.?
BB: I don’t know what’s going on between Rick Ross and Trick Daddy right now [click to read] or Shawty Lo and T.I. [click to read]; I mean that’s their business. I know one thing, I’m about this music and when I’m on these interviews I don’t comment on these things. To me, that’s feminine and I don’t get with that type of shit. Continued on page 2 »