4/8 of Outkast, Big Boi, announced today that his solo album, Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, will come out in July. It’s nice to see Outkast are still makin stuff, because they seem to be the only rappers out there who get any sort of mainstream press that are willing to embrace goofiness. Just look at the name of that album – it looks like it could be the title of a Beck or Pavement album, and I mean that as a compliment. Compared with his Outkast brethren, Andre 3000, Big Boi, seems to be the conventional one, but you can tell even he has a bit of an experimental side. Can you imagine Jay-Z or 50 Cent naming their album Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty? No you couldn’t.
Word is that Andre’s solo album will be out later this year and a new Outkast album will come out in the beginning of 2009. Their last one, Idlewild, didn’t really excite critics or the sales charts. Perhaps on this next one they can return to their late-90’s peak form. But that’s probably expecting too much. Maybe they”ll re-emerge as Dust Bowl balladeerin’, acoustic guitar slingin’ folk artists who have the ability to talk really fast in rhyme-form. That’d be a nice change of pace.
