The Odd Couple
Written by Dana Crum, this feature on OutKast appeared in the Nov. 1998 issue of The Source.
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"That shit made me so mad, man," Dre recalls. Rumor had it that he and Gipp of the Goodie mob, also known for his outlandish gear, had a thing going. On the track "Return of the Gangsta," Dre addresses all the rumors (There were more than two.): "'What's up with Andre? / Is he in a cult? Is he on drugs? Gay? / When y'all gon' break up?' / When y'all gon' wake up, nigga? / I'm feelin' better than ever. / What's wrong wit' you?" Another song--"Y'all Scared," a haunting, spiraling track--reveals how afraid most people are of straying from the crowd.
Dre, though he's from the streets and has an allegiance to them, is no longer street in his attire, behavior and world view. Not scared, he chooses to be himself rather than stepping into one of society's ready-made roles. Dissecting conformity in the black community, he says, "Everybody wanna be [a thug], man. That's silly, man. People just scared to go there. But everybody waitin' on that nigga to do it. But niggas scared because they don't want to be the one to get ridiculed. So you have to be a strong nigga to take that ridicule." Dre is strong enough. It's a shame, though, that he has to be.
For the record, the brother isn't gay. Neither is Gipp. "Niggas know what I'm about because of what I rap about. So I couldn't even see how they could say some shit like that." For the first time during the entire interview, Dre's voice rises. He's not shouting, but his voice has for the moment lost its jazzy, soothing quality.
His girlfriend, the mother of his ten-month-old son, can vouch for his sexual orientation. But if you don't already know who his celebrity girlfriend is, you won't find out from this article. "The stuff about [me] and [her]," Dre indicates, "I really try to keep it out of the media because we already out there. And then you just don't want the whole world to be in your personal home life. So really, we can just keep this [interview] to the music. And that'll work. Because our whole life is really [for] the people. We gotta have somethin' that's ours, at home."
What he and his girl want is what every couple deserves--privacy. So can we, the public, forego our ravenous curiosity and give them that? Let's hope so. Especially since some of us so love to twist facts and start rumors.
Dre, though he's from the streets and has an allegiance to them, is no longer street in his attire, behavior and world view. Not scared, he chooses to be himself rather than stepping into one of society's ready-made roles. Dissecting conformity in the black community, he says, "Everybody wanna be [a thug], man. That's silly, man. People just scared to go there. But everybody waitin' on that nigga to do it. But niggas scared because they don't want to be the one to get ridiculed. So you have to be a strong nigga to take that ridicule." Dre is strong enough. It's a shame, though, that he has to be.
For the record, the brother isn't gay. Neither is Gipp. "Niggas know what I'm about because of what I rap about. So I couldn't even see how they could say some shit like that." For the first time during the entire interview, Dre's voice rises. He's not shouting, but his voice has for the moment lost its jazzy, soothing quality.
His girlfriend, the mother of his ten-month-old son, can vouch for his sexual orientation. But if you don't already know who his celebrity girlfriend is, you won't find out from this article. "The stuff about [me] and [her]," Dre indicates, "I really try to keep it out of the media because we already out there. And then you just don't want the whole world to be in your personal home life. So really, we can just keep this [interview] to the music. And that'll work. Because our whole life is really [for] the people. We gotta have somethin' that's ours, at home."
What he and his girl want is what every couple deserves--privacy. So can we, the public, forego our ravenous curiosity and give them that? Let's hope so. Especially since some of us so love to twist facts and start rumors.
***
Big Boi undermines the specious conclusion that places him and Dre at opposite extremes: "I'm the wild side. And if I'm the wild side, then Dre has to be the even wilder side." So Dre isn't the only one different from those around him. Big Boi is too, but in his own way. Though he's as street as the street cats he comes in contact with, he has acquired (thanks to record sales) more material possessions than any of them, except, of course, for the most iced-down of drug dealers. He cruises the streets of ATL in a white Mercedes 500S, the gold around his neck and on his wrist glistering in the sunlight. We've learned the price Dre has paid for being different. Any guesses for what price Big Boi has paid?
I discover the answer while riding with him. We've just left The Blue Flame, a strip joint on Bankhead Highway, and I'm preparing to ask some more questions when I realize I don't have my trusty tape recorder. I look all over the car, but to no avail. Big Boi suggests checking the console. Knowing it isn't there, I look inside anyway. I don't find my recorder. What I find is a loaded 9-millimeter. My skin flushes hot. I close the console. Only then does it occur to me to check the back of my seat, and sure enough there my recorder is.
But I don't continue my interview. What is Big Boi involved in that requires he drive around with a burner? Will there ever come a time when African-American and Latino men in the ghetto will stash away books instead of guns? And will our blood ever cease to stain the hot pavement?
Trailing us, several cars back, is Mr. DJ, whose name at point-blank range explains the role he plays in OutKast. Minutes later Big Boi and I are exiting the expressway when a black Suburban headed in the other direction does a U-y and follows us. We turn into the parking lot outside Big Boi's bank and pull up behind the cars in line for the teller machine. The Suburban idles behind us. Big Boi's eyes narrow as he glares into the rear-view mirror. He places his burner on the floor within reach. What if the unseen carjackers spark a shoot-out? I imagine blood, Big Boi's and mine, dripping down the windshield and soiling the beige leather seats. But Mr. DJ's Jag pulls up beside us, and the Suburban peels off, its tires screeching.
Mr. DJ steps out and Big Boi rolls down his window.
"Hey, I'll barbecue them niggas," Big Boi says.
"I'll fry they ass up!" Mr. DJ shouts in his soft-spoken drawl.
"Hey, man, for real, man. I don't know if he was goin' to the telle or what, but his ass was fin to go somewhere else, though."
Some would argue that carrying heat puts your life in greater danger by encouraging you to go looking for beef. That may often be the case. With Big Boi it's not. He keeps heat in the car only to protect himself, not to start a career as some black Charles Bronson. And he's not involved in anything illegal, as I for a moment worried. It's not unusual for him to glance into his rear-view mirror only to see a car tailing him. He explains, "A nigga want what you got and expect you just--youknow'I'msayin'?--just to give it up. Game don't work like that."
Big Boi is no gangsta, but he can become one if the situation demands it. "You gotta put ya gangsta mentality on, youknow'I'msayin'? You gotta mothafuckin' grab yo' mothafuckin' heat, and whatever they wanna do, you gotta be prepared to do [it], youknow'I'msayin'? You can ask anybody, man. I'm the coolest nigga. Don't want no beef. Just laid-back. But when it's time to get buck, I get buck. 'Cause ain't nobody fin to take me up outa here on no bullshit.
"Don't get me wrong. I don't wanna harm nobody son, but if the harm comes to my front door to me, shit, I gotta protect myself. The first rule of life is self-preservation, and that's what I'm fin to do. And that's real."
For some time he's silent. "Straight-up, man. I got a kid, man."
"And you need to be here," I say, looking over at him. "To take care of her."
"Not only that, man." His voice lowers. "Youknow'I'msayin'? Shit. . . my whole family dependin' on me, man. You know what I'm talkin' 'bout?"
"Yeah. I do."
"Can't take away a man's livelihood. If you back him in a corner, he liable to do anythang."
Big Boi notes that OutKast gets mostly love on the streets, and he is careful to clarify that he isn't tailed everyday. But that he should ever be tailed is a sad commentary on certain elements in our community.
I discover the answer while riding with him. We've just left The Blue Flame, a strip joint on Bankhead Highway, and I'm preparing to ask some more questions when I realize I don't have my trusty tape recorder. I look all over the car, but to no avail. Big Boi suggests checking the console. Knowing it isn't there, I look inside anyway. I don't find my recorder. What I find is a loaded 9-millimeter. My skin flushes hot. I close the console. Only then does it occur to me to check the back of my seat, and sure enough there my recorder is.
But I don't continue my interview. What is Big Boi involved in that requires he drive around with a burner? Will there ever come a time when African-American and Latino men in the ghetto will stash away books instead of guns? And will our blood ever cease to stain the hot pavement?
Trailing us, several cars back, is Mr. DJ, whose name at point-blank range explains the role he plays in OutKast. Minutes later Big Boi and I are exiting the expressway when a black Suburban headed in the other direction does a U-y and follows us. We turn into the parking lot outside Big Boi's bank and pull up behind the cars in line for the teller machine. The Suburban idles behind us. Big Boi's eyes narrow as he glares into the rear-view mirror. He places his burner on the floor within reach. What if the unseen carjackers spark a shoot-out? I imagine blood, Big Boi's and mine, dripping down the windshield and soiling the beige leather seats. But Mr. DJ's Jag pulls up beside us, and the Suburban peels off, its tires screeching.
Mr. DJ steps out and Big Boi rolls down his window.
"Hey, I'll barbecue them niggas," Big Boi says.
"I'll fry they ass up!" Mr. DJ shouts in his soft-spoken drawl.
"Hey, man, for real, man. I don't know if he was goin' to the telle or what, but his ass was fin to go somewhere else, though."
Some would argue that carrying heat puts your life in greater danger by encouraging you to go looking for beef. That may often be the case. With Big Boi it's not. He keeps heat in the car only to protect himself, not to start a career as some black Charles Bronson. And he's not involved in anything illegal, as I for a moment worried. It's not unusual for him to glance into his rear-view mirror only to see a car tailing him. He explains, "A nigga want what you got and expect you just--youknow'I'msayin'?--just to give it up. Game don't work like that."
Big Boi is no gangsta, but he can become one if the situation demands it. "You gotta put ya gangsta mentality on, youknow'I'msayin'? You gotta mothafuckin' grab yo' mothafuckin' heat, and whatever they wanna do, you gotta be prepared to do [it], youknow'I'msayin'? You can ask anybody, man. I'm the coolest nigga. Don't want no beef. Just laid-back. But when it's time to get buck, I get buck. 'Cause ain't nobody fin to take me up outa here on no bullshit.
"Don't get me wrong. I don't wanna harm nobody son, but if the harm comes to my front door to me, shit, I gotta protect myself. The first rule of life is self-preservation, and that's what I'm fin to do. And that's real."
For some time he's silent. "Straight-up, man. I got a kid, man."
"And you need to be here," I say, looking over at him. "To take care of her."
"Not only that, man." His voice lowers. "Youknow'I'msayin'? Shit. . . my whole family dependin' on me, man. You know what I'm talkin' 'bout?"
"Yeah. I do."
"Can't take away a man's livelihood. If you back him in a corner, he liable to do anythang."
Big Boi notes that OutKast gets mostly love on the streets, and he is careful to clarify that he isn't tailed everyday. But that he should ever be tailed is a sad commentary on certain elements in our community.
***
Big Boi and Dre live in two very different worlds. Dre in the self-created world of his solitude. Big Boi in the hectic streets of ATL. Both of them are in some way beleaguered by their journey, but ultimately they find solace and strength in their deeply-rooted friendship, a friendship that enables them to bring to the hip-hop community albums that are memorable works of art.
"We back," Big Boi proclaims. "We just so happy 'cause it was so much talk about OutKast breakin' up. And we never really got a chance to get in any kind of publications [and] speak our mind. That's why we named the album Aquemini, man. It ain't no breakin' up, man."
Aquemini is the score and libretto of their response to the rumors, which are still thriving. Big Boi is the Aquarius, Dre the Gemini. Aquemini is the amalgamation of two signs, two personalities, two men who have once again come together as one in pursuit of artistic transcendence.
Big Boi muses, "[People be] like, 'Man, how in the fuck can two people so different be so alike and communicate so well?' 'Cause we brothers, man. I mean, Dre never had any brothers or sisters. So, I mean, I feel like I am his brother and I know he feel that way. 'Cause like we shared a room in his father's house. Like brothers, youknow'I'msayin'? One sleepin' on the bed, one sleepin' on the floor when we was goin' through high school. And shit, man, that's my homeboy, youknow'I'msayin'? If I wadn't in a group wit' Dre, I'd be solo. Straight-up. I couldn't have been in a group wit' nobody else."
"We back," Big Boi proclaims. "We just so happy 'cause it was so much talk about OutKast breakin' up. And we never really got a chance to get in any kind of publications [and] speak our mind. That's why we named the album Aquemini, man. It ain't no breakin' up, man."
Aquemini is the score and libretto of their response to the rumors, which are still thriving. Big Boi is the Aquarius, Dre the Gemini. Aquemini is the amalgamation of two signs, two personalities, two men who have once again come together as one in pursuit of artistic transcendence.
Big Boi muses, "[People be] like, 'Man, how in the fuck can two people so different be so alike and communicate so well?' 'Cause we brothers, man. I mean, Dre never had any brothers or sisters. So, I mean, I feel like I am his brother and I know he feel that way. 'Cause like we shared a room in his father's house. Like brothers, youknow'I'msayin'? One sleepin' on the bed, one sleepin' on the floor when we was goin' through high school. And shit, man, that's my homeboy, youknow'I'msayin'? If I wadn't in a group wit' Dre, I'd be solo. Straight-up. I couldn't have been in a group wit' nobody else."