by DeMarco Williams  

Argue all you want about which of Outkast’s five classic albums is the best. (Nope, you’re all wrong – it’s ATLiens). Argue all you want about which member of the influential rap team, Andre “3000” Benjamin or Antwan “Big Boi” Patton, is most important. (Wrong again; both are equally vital to the Outkast sound.) You can even debate as to whether or not making the movie Idlewild, a colorful Prohibition-era story told by the duo through song, is a good career move. Do all of that, just get at Big Boi after you’re finished, for the successful pitbull breeder will either be too busy promoting one of the acts from his Purple Ribbon label, overseeing his restaurant in Miami or dropping his kids off at school to much care. It’s a wonder INsite was even able to nail down the burgeoning mogul long enough for this interview...

Why did you start this project? Basically, Dre and I had Aquemini Records. Then he started doing movies and, I guess, he saw how time-consuming it was to run a label – even though he wasn’t there everyday. I was in the office everyday. Just from him getting calls and making decisions, he was like, “Yo, man. I think you should just go and do the label thing yourself.” I was like, “Cool, fuck it.” I changed the name to Purple Ribbon, hocked up with Virgin Records and just jumped it off. The meaning behind the label is that I breed dogs and everything. When you can count seven generations of the dog’s pedigree, that’s when the dog is perfect-rhythm bred. A lot of the cats that’s on the label, like Sleepy Brown and Killer Mike and Bubba Sparxxx, have been around in the Dungeon Family for years, close to a decade now. I’m just trying to provide avenues for them to put their albums out. Everybody that’s on the label is proven and already been tested in the market. I’m just out here letting these boys put they records out. Everybody’s album is jammin’. Everybody’s album is like 90 to 95% complete. I’ve been working on [their] records for three years now, so I can speak on it.

How are you, Sleepy, Mike and Bubba able to stay so tight after a decade? That generally isn’t the case in hip hop? It’s like, when you’re around people, it’s not like we only do music together. These are my friends also. They’re just good people. When you’re around people all the time, doing good and bad, and you still travel around the country, doing shows and everything it’s like it’s a brotherhood. This ain’t fake, man. Record sales or Hollywood – nobody’s gonna change us. We’ve been down thus far. These my buddies. I don’t have time to make new friends. I have acquaintances in business, people that I deal with. But my friends are my friends. Those are the people that’s been there before everything exploded.

So, if they’ve been there before they’ll be there afterwards? Believe it. Those my guys and they passionate about they craft. I’m ridin’ with them. They ridin’ with me and still doing. It’s a respect there and a love there that ain’t fake or superficial.

When are we gonna see a Big Boi album? Yes you are. I’ve already started working on that as well. After I finished Speakerboxxx (in 2003) –Outkast’s thing has always been to keep recording - I kept recording. I have something like 20 songs recorded for my solo album. It’ll be out in about two years. I’m gonna let everybody get their record out and I’ma be like, “Boom!” And it’ll most definitely be on Purple Ribbon. My dream is to be on my own label. If Michael Jordan would have finished up with the team [he owned], he would’ve been the owner of the team playing for the team. That’s my thing, man.

What’s the latest on Idlewild? The movie comes out January 6. Actually, Universal screened it [a few months ago]. People went crazy. I saw the rough cut a couple of months ago and it was outstanding. I just knew this is what people would want from Outkast. It’s like the next step after doing a double CD. What could be better than giving them a visual with an album. It’s not like a musical that people are painting it out to be. It’s not Carmen, like they did on MTV where I’d be talking and just go into la, la, la, la! It’s a real fuckin’ movie, man.

Can you tell us a lil’ about the story? Most prior word on the plot has been kinda vague. It’s two stories going at the same time—actually, it’s more than two. Dre is a main character and I’m a main character. What people don’t know is that it’s not a Rush Hour [type of movie] where me and Dre are like Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. Me and Dre only have like two or three scenes together in the whole movie. You’ll see my acting capability and his separately and see what it’ll do. It’s gonna shock the world, buddy. Music is my first love but… What a lot of people don’t understand is that I’m not the rah-rah type of dude, saying I’m doing that and I’m doing this. I’d rather let my work speak for itself.

Dre’s work spoke wonderfully in Four Brothers. What did you think of his performance? I haven’t even seen Four Brothers.

Word? What’s that all about? I’ve been working. I’ve been in the studio. Man, I ain’t have time to go to the movies. The last movie I went to see was a movie with my kids. I haven’t seen it yet but I heard it was pretty good. I saw Be Cool though. I saw Hollywood Homicide, too. His performances were pretty good. The movie Be Cool wasn’t the best movie in the world, but he did his thing though. He was one of the standout characters in the movie.

When it’s time for promoting the Idlewild project, are we gonna see you and Dre doing it together? Hell yeah. It’s all good. Unlike what people be saying, there’s no beef or anything. It’s like if you were with your brother your whole life, y’all grow up and might take interest in different things. Music is my first love, but people outta know that I am acting. They will see come January 6. I just finished another movie with T.I., directed by Chris Robinson, called Cascade. It was called Jellybeans. It was produced by Will Smith and Dallas Austin. It’s about Atlanta’s skating rink nightlife. Back in the late 80s, early 90s, that’s what the whole lifestyle was about. When they see me on the screen, it’s gonna be a lot to come from Big Boi. I’ve got a lot to offer the world, man. This is just the beginning.

You’ve been around for awhile. You’ve seen hip hop go through a couple of phases. The phase where it is now, do you like it? Now it’s in a stage where it’s a formula that everybody is using. At the same time, it’s working. But as far as the art form of hip hop, I don’t know if it’s where it needs to be, but it has to go through this to get where it needs to go. It’s been a long time while the South was waiting to get its shine, but now that it’s getting its shine, the South is winning. One thing about cats in the South is that they know how to make songs. We know how to make grooves and songs with bridges and hooks and everything. But it ain’t really concentrating on the lyricism right now – which isn’t a bad thing. [Still] you have to add some of everything into the music when you make it. I’m not saying you have to be the big, baddest MC on every song, but you gotta flex out and let’em know you ain’t a joke on that microphone. It’s not a whole lot of that going on, but I’m not upset about where it is now. You gotta start somewhere to get to the finish line.

When Outkast and Goodie Mob came around, there was an emphasis on lyrics. Then it kind of faded and went to the crunk/club sound. Now, you kinda see a resurrection of lyricism. Is that a fair assessment? You got different artists doing different things. Those of us who really take lyricism seriously, you’re gonna hear that on songs. Just like the song “Kryptonite.” It’s a form of crunk. I like to call it funk crunk. It ain’t just you basic, average blah, blah, blah. I try to be kinda tricky with it. A lot of folks think the song’s just about smoking, but if you listen to my verse carefully, it’ll talk about being invincible. It talks about how even if I get pulled over by the police, I’ll get to court and the judge can’t even touch me. So, you gotta put double-sided meanings in things and be kinda tricky and clever with it. I don’t want the listener to listen to the songs I do and produce and be like, “Oh well. I’ll just take it at face value.” You gotta listen. Even with Outkast’s albums, you gotta go back and listen. I got people coming to me and saying, “I just found out you said such and such on this album.” You gotta leave little things in there for them they gotta go back to and revisit. And sometimes, it’s brain food. It can be plain as day but you don’t have to put it in an A, B, C type form. But at the same time, every artist is not going to be like that. Killer Mike and even Sleepy Brown might look at it differently, but when we come together, you got some super shit together.