Big Boi just kicked off a summer-long OutKast reunion tour with André 3000, but his thoughts are already on his next move. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter this week, the rapper revealed plans for several upcoming projects, the first of which is a new solo album.
“I’m just working on it now,” Big Boi said. “I’ve got a lot of music, but it ain’t done until you turn it in. We’re about to do 40-something more concerts, so [I’ll be] recording on the road and traveling. When asked about an expected release date, he said, "I’m shooting for this year. You’ll definitely get a couple of songs before the end of the year. Whether the project is done or not just depends on how wild this road gets.”
But that's not all. Continuing down the path of collaborating with artists in the indie rock sphere (his last two albums have seen appearances by the bands Vonnegutt, Phantogram, Little Dragon and Wavves), Big Boi said he's got projects with New York electro-pop group Phantogram and Pacific Northwest indie rockers Modest Mouse on the way.
Speaking on Phantogram, who appeared on three songs on his last album, Big Boi said, “We’ve got songs which were already recorded when we were working on my last record. They come down to Stankonia and we camp out for like a week and trade vibes. They go back to New York, then they come back down and we just keep the process going.”
Their joint project will be called Big Grams, and is shaping up to be an EP, but Big Boi said he's open to it expanding into an album. His solo LP is his first priority though.
On the Modest Mouse collaboration, which was first reported in 2011, Big Boi said he has been kept in the dark about the project's future. “I’ve been asking [lead singer] Isaac [Brock] when they gonna do it, man,” he said. “We’ve got these songs they’ve been sitting on forever. I saw him a couple months ago and they’re working on some additions to what we did. I don’t know. It’s a crazy camp over there. It’s coming. Talk to him! He’s the boss.”
Big Boi's clearly looking to stray from the norm in Hip-Hop, as was evidenced on 2012's Vicious Lies And Dangerous Rumors, and he addressed that in the interview too:
“[I’m looking for] just a sonically different sound than what’s out there,” he said. “I don’t go for the artists that everybody’s using or get somebody just for the name.”
Do you think Big Boi's unique approach has been working on his solo albums?