 8Ball and MJG | Drake  |
All that hate was just motivation for us. We just started recording record after record, and one day Dre called me and was like, ‘I got the beat! I got the beat!’ and it was the beat for ‘Rosa Parks.
Antwan “Big Boi” Patton has never had a problem staying relevant. Over the last 14 years, Big, 34, has been more than just the street-smart half of the legendary OutKast—he’s also managed his own label, Purple Ribbon Entertainment, with an eclectic roster of stars. Now, on the heels of news that his long-gestating solo album, Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty (Jive/LaFace), will finally get a summer release date, Big Boi talked to VIBE about the genesis of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (LaFace, 2003), getting booed in New York, and why Andre 3000 is still “the coldest” MC on the mic.
VIBE: How did you meet Andre 3000?
Big Boi: I had known Dre for maybe a year and a half, two years before we started working on Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. We were still in high school, just about to graduate. Actually that’s when Dre had dropped out of school, he was just doing music.
You remember The Source Awards when OutKast got booed up in New York?
Yes. The Source Awards thing came between Southernplayalistic and ATLiens. We won best group. We beat out everybody, it was at Madison Square Garden, and [the audience] was so shocked they started booing. And Dre got upset and he said, “I’m gon’ tell ya’ll something, the South got something to say.” From that point forward, all that hate was just motivation for us. So we went into the studio, and it was just me and Dre together. We were working at Dallas Austin’s studio, DARP, and we were working at Stankonia studios, the studio we have now. And we just started recording record after record, and one day Dre called me and was like, “I got the beat! I got the beat!” and it was the beat for “Rosa Parks.”
Is it true that it was Atlanta DJ Greg Street’s idea to do Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below as a split double album?
Yup. Sho’ was. He came up with it. Came up to the studio one day and said, “Tell you what ya’ll need to do: a solo album. You do one, and you do one, and put that thing together.” We were standing outside the studio. And we just kept it in the back of our minds, and it ended up being like that when we did the record.
Now you got a solo album about to pop, and Dre got his.
But my album is done. I just did a song with Gucci Mane, Juelz Santana. [Dre is] still one of the coldest ever. He’ll tell you all day, “Nigga, I’d write one verse that’d destroy your whole album.”
Listen to Big Boi's "Something's Gotta Give" feat. Mary J. Blige
home
