As we reported earlier, Andre 3000 is not planning to come back as some sort of savior of rap, but he is still doing the movies. With that, 3K has been gearing up for the release of a new film he’s got. “Battle in Seattle” is a new picture starring Andre Benjamin alongside Ray Liotta, Woody Harrelson and Charlize Theron. Battle is a film about a riot that happened after a peaceful protest against The World Trade Organizations in Seattle back in 1999.
“When I saw the title “Battle in Seattle,” I thought it was catchy,” he told MTV. “I thought, ‘Hey, this may be some kind of rap movie.’ You know, they want some kind of battle. They want me to do the kind of ‘8 Mile’ battle thing. ‘Cause that’s the roles they give to rappers anyway. So once I read it, I was like, ‘Hey, OK, this is something serious.’ And then, the bigger picture, it was something I didn’t know about. I knew if I didn’t know about it, I knew a lot of people didn’t know about it. So I said, ‘Let me bring this to the world … through my people, through people in the rap world.’ So at that point, I felt like I was doing a good deed bringing light to it.”
“I was kinda ashamed that I didn’t know anything about it. I just felt like me being a part of it would bring a certain audience to it. It’s about the riots that took place in ’99, when pretty much the whole world protested the WTO. They pulled it off. They were strategic about it. They called it a riot because there were a couple of things that went down that were unfortunate. But pretty much everything was not breaking the law, and they did it smartly.”
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“I play a protester by the name of Django. He’s pretty much bringing light to the subject. I guess people look at protesting and feel like, of course, it’s heavy. You got issues and all this kind of stuff. But my character is the person that keeps everybody on the up-and-up and alive and laughing. Even when we’re locked up, I’m always making jokes and trying to keep it together.”
Fans of his music don’t need to worry much. He’s already working on the next project, while maintaining that he is in full support of Outkast partner Big Boi‘s new record.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time working on the next music project, which will be my album. I can say I don’t know what it’s going to sound like. I can say I know what the message is already. I know what the vibe is. I’m just now really getting into it. Right now, I’m in support of Big Boi‘s album coming out right, Sir Luscious Left Foot. Go pick it up. Then after that, if God’s willing, we’ll do another Outkast album. I’ve been overseas working on this new, exciting clothing company called Benjamin Bigsby that’s in stores right now. And that’s been taking a lot of my time. But I’m really passionate about it, and I love doing it. It’s been one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, but I’ve loved clothes since I was a kid.”
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Expect “Battle in Seattle” to hit theaters September 19.
