S. Samuel
OutKast's Big Boi recently spoke on his early struggles alongside Andre 3000 for gaining the respect of hip-hop fans in the mid-1990's and using "hate" for "motivation."
Reflecting on being booed at the 1995 Source Awards, Boi described their aim to feed off of the negative energy.
“The Source Awards thing came between Southernplayalistic and ATLiens,” he explained in an interview. “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.'” (Vibe)
The awards show’s negative reception came shortly after the group’s Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik went platinum.
“Conversely, when receiving their award for Best Rap Group at the Source Awards in 1995, they were booed when they took the stage. Although Big Boi managed to give his shout-outs, Dre was a bit nervous and only managed to squeak out a couple of choice words — but nonetheless prophetic: ‘The South got somethin’ to say.'” (Icons of Hip-Hop)
Boi also recently spoke on overcoming his past record label woes.
“The push backs have just really been trying to get the situation together with the record label, and trying to learn a new system,” Boi said in an interview. “There are some talks going on right now. I can’t really release it right now. Probably within the next week or so, there will be a big announcement coming out and the album will be out this summer, believe it, it’s done, it’s it in the can and I’m very happy with it. We got to clearing it up. It was just a new system and releasing new music in a new system that hasn’t really been apart of our careers. It’s been a change but I think we’ve reached some type of median right now which is going to lead to that big announcement that is going to come up in the next week or so. I’m just very happy about the situation right now. I can’t wait to let the world know when it’s coming out.” (Word of South)
He previously said Jive Records caused constant delays with his projects.
“Jive Records, man,” Boi said, whose contract was adopted by Jive after Arista dissolved its roster in 2004. “You know what goes with Jive? Shuckin’ and jivin’. And the fans have been thinking it’s me and [Andre 3000]. You can’t work on music for two-plus years and just give it to a label and they just f*ck it up…It’s like I’m indie right now, but they won’t let us out the contract. The Clipse said it best [on ‘Mr. Me Too’] when they said ‘they weren’t playing fair at Jive.’ They don’t want to spend the money, but the music’s gonna make its own way.” (Rolling Stone)
