After a three-year delay, Big Boi's solo debut will finally arrive in 2010. The album will be released "at the top of the year", the rapper promised this week, to be followed by an Andre 3000 solo LP and, "[if] the fans support them", a new Outkast record.
"This is all in the next year or so," Big Boi told Billboard. This is a welcome development after more than 18 months of hints, leaks and excuses. While Big Boi's album still doesn't have a release date, it does have a title: Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty. "There's been a lot of stops and starts with this project," the Atlanta MC admitted. "I've just been trying to make sure we've got the right avenues and the right brains and mindsets together to get the marketing and promoting behind it. When you work on something for, like, two years and 11 months, it's like your baby."
The public has already had several glimpses of the "baby", on leaked tracks like Shine Blockas, with Gucci Mane, and Royal Flush, with Andre 3000 and Raekwon. "It's ... like giving them a little sampler from the album and showing how diverse it is," Big Boi said. Other contributors include Mary J Blige, George Clinton, Too $hort, Lil Jon, B.o.B., TI and Jamie Foxx. "Every song that I put out sounds totally different from the previous ones," he said.
In August, Big Boi blamed the delay on his label, Jive. "It was just a new system and releasing new music in a new system that hasn't really been apart of our careers," he told Word of the South. "It's been a change." At that time, he promised a "big announcement" in late August or September – instead, it took until this week for any formal details to be revealed. "I slow-cooked this album," he explained.
Still, 2010 looks set to be a mammoth year for Antwan Andre "Big Boi" Patton. "Right after me," he said, Andre 3000 will release his own solo debut, "and when the solo albums come out, depending on how the fans support them, then we're gonna give them the Outkast album."
The hip-hop duo's last LP was 2006's Idlewild, seen by many as a disappointment.
