Interview: Big Boi For Ozone Magazine

Although I think a magazine devoted entirely to southern rap music is a bit overtly exclusionary and dull, I will give up some props to the folks over at Ozone Mag for putting Outkast's Big Boi on the cover of their 84th issue and doing a smash bang job of interviewing the ATLien legend who's currently prepping his new solo LP for all of his fans, that might I add, exist everywhere...Dive in as respected blogger/wrter and all around Hip-Hopper Maurice Garland conducts the detailed questioning...

-BIG D O

Ozone: You said the final straw was when Jive asked you to record your own version of Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop.” Why would they think that would be a good idea?

Big Boi: They don’t know us like that. Up until Speakerboxx/The Love Below, Outkast was not a radio-driven group. We are Soul Funk crusaders. The type of music we make, we weren’t seeing eye-to-eye with the label on it. For a man to tell me to go make my own version of “Lollipop?” That doesn’t even sound right. That’s what the president of Jive told me. When he told me that, that’s when I had to start putting my own songs out. I was leaking songs just trying to figure out how to make the right moves. I want to put this album out under the right circumstances. Things weren’t jelling over there.

Read the rest here